Much of the reporting about Africa is done from a Western perspective – and then fed back to Africans via global news agencies. The much-vaunted concept of African unity doesn't stand a chance until we start to determine our own priorities, and stop seeing ourselves through others' eyes. We desperately need an “African Al Jazeera” that will enable us to tell our own stories – to each other, and to the world.

Our leaders love to talk about African unity. From Kwame Nkrumah’s soaring vision of a continent working together to free itself of colonial shackles, to Muammar Gaddafi’s grubby dream of a “United States of Africa” with himself as president for life, and encompassing Thabo Mbeki’s African Renaissance and the more recent (and more pragmatic) talk of regional integration coming from the likes of AU chief Jean Ping, the pan-African ideal is alive and well and has played an extremely influential role in the politics of this continent.

But despite the talk, these lofty ambitions remain just that: Ambitious and out of reach. Africa is not united. Our borders are the most difficult to cross in the world. Our transport networks are designed to take things out of Africa, rather than through it. And our media remains uniformly isolated and parochial. It’s this last which worries me most.

Just take a look at the Africa or Foreign pages of almost any national newspaper on the continent – the stories are often good, but they are even more often followed by a Reuters or Associated Press byline. Even the venerable Mail & Guardian, perhaps the only African newspaper to enjoy some international repute, mainly recycles articles from The Guardian for its Africa section. Just like raw African gold is sent abroad to be turned into pretty jewellery which we then buy back at a hugely inflated cost, so our continental news is sent overseas to be written, editorialised and then sent back to us – a service for which our media outlets pay significant sums. This is even sometimes true of local news. In late 2009 I attended an event in Tanzania with the Tanzanian press corps in full attendance, as well as a stringer from Reuters. Sure enough, the report in the local newspapers the next day was from Reuters.

So? Does it matter that much of what we know of fellow African countries comes off the wires, or syndicated radio, or Western satellite TV stations? I think it does matter, hugely. Firstly, there is the issue of biases and prejudices, latent or otherwise, which inevitably colour all reporters’ stories. All things considered, I’d prefer the news to be covered with our own biases and prejudices, which are rather more familiar to me (and thus easier to see through). It’s also simple things such as word choice and diction; what is easy for a Midwestern American to read might not be easy for a Nigerian to read, and vice versa.

Secondly, there is the issue of prioritising stories. At the moment, a bizarre situation exists whereby much of the African news in African newspapers is determined by what a European or American editor deems interesting for a European or American audience. That is why the revolution in Libya has received so much coverage this week, compared to the killing of 53 AU peacekeepers in Somalia or the ongoing political stalemate in Cote d’Ivoire. Libya, with its oil and caricature dictator, is a much more interesting story in the West than is Somalia or Cote d’Ivoire – but which countries are really more important for most African audiences?

Thirdly, and most importantly, the fact that our foreign news comes from foreign sources prevents African media outlets from being taken seriously on the African and the world stage. The insularity of our media prevents any publication from being influential outside of the borders of its country of origin, with a few notable exceptions such as the Mail & Guardian across southern Africa and The East African in east Africa (both, incidentally, owned by publishers whose newspaper stables span national boundaries). Thus, politicians, policy makers and businesspeople are forced to look outward if they want to receive any kind of pan-African or even regional coverage. This also means that no African publication has a voice on the international stage. The debates about aid money, about disease and about governance in Africa are all conducted in the more obscure pages of international publications such as The Economist and the Financial Times, with little input from the continent. This also means that most Africans don’t get to see these debates.

What Africa really needs is a flagship, pan-African publication to start reporting on African news for Africans and fighting for Africa’s corner on the international media stage. It’s not an impossible dream – only 15 short years ago, the Middle East was in a similar situation. Then came Al Jazeera, the station which completely revolutionised how news in the Middle East is reported and disseminated. Africa needs its very own Al Jazeera, or at the very least a continental newspaper which can do what Al Jazeera does. Without it, Africa will continue to export its news production and see itself through Western filters.

And a continent that can’t even effectively report on itself is not a continent that’s going to achieve unity any time soon. FAM