In this installment of our Journalists@Work series we meet Mabvuto Phiri, an editor at MUVI TV in Lusaka, Zambia. Mabvuto has been working at MUVI since it started broadcasting and was recently selected to take part in the DW Akademie program, East4South.

Deutsche Welle’s André Leslie spoke to him about everyday life as a journalist in Zambia and a recent court case concerning people who physically attacked him for reporting on a sensitive issue. 

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” Ein, zwei, drei, …. Zehn. Ok tout le monde est là “, compte Stephie à l’entrée du métro sous le regard éberlué de tous, c’est-à-dire : Abiatou Oumarou du Benin, Khady Racine Diop du Sénégal, Elysée Ngindu Odia de la RDC, Madiha Boukal du Maroc, Ramata Konaté du Mali, Ibrahima Keita de la Guinée, Luigi Giovanni Temdie du Cameroun, Nestor Ebongo du Congo Brazzaville, Oumar Coulibaly du Burkina Faso et Taha Jemai de la Tunisie. Il s’agit des dix journalistes et techniciens  audiovisuels  venus  à Berlin dans le cadre du projet ” Histoires Africaines “. Arrivés  la veille, tous ont déjà subi le froid réfrigérant de l’été allemand. C’est donc bien équipé que la délégation africaine s’embarque pour une aventure à grande vitesse de 14 jours à Berlin.

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I think for any trainer it’s very satisfying after two weeks of intensive television production training to see on the last day, participants proudly holding in their hands the DVD featuring the TV stories they had produced during the course. But most importantly for participants, they’re returning to their home stations from the African Stories workshop in Kampala with feature stories ready for broadcast and motivated to put new storytelling skills into practice.

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Being part of the African Stories workshop in Cape Town, I was most excited about meeting fellow young journalists from all over Southern Africa. The first thing I noticed was that we have a lot in common. They, as journalists, want their voices to be heard and they are eager to tell their own stories. But even more so, they want to show the world who they are as Africans – and not leave that to media outlets outside of Africa, which in their view, often present a one-sided image of the continent.

 

“Western journalists often only concentrate on one area like poverty,” said Mathews Nthala, editor at MUVI TV in Zambia. “In this workshop, we are given the opportunity to show that there is a lot of potential in Africa. Many people are doing well in terms of entrepreneurship and self-empowerment. An African led empowerment, that to me sums up what African Stories is about.”

 

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