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1 Burnside Africa- General

New News Out of Africa: Uncovering Africa's Renaissance (W.E.B. Du Bois Institute)

by Charlayne Hunter-Gault

New News Out of Africa: Uncovering Africa's Renaissance (W.E.B. Du Bois Institute) Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

For twenty years an acclaimed correspondent on PBS's The News Hour with Jim Lehrer and the winner of two Emmys and two Peabody Awards (the latter two for her coverage of Africa), Charlayne Hunter-Gault was until recently the Johannesburg Bureau Chief for CNN. In New News Out of Africa, this eminent reporter offers a fresh and surprisingly optimistic assessment of modern Africa, revealing that there is more to the continent than the bad news of disease, disaster, and despair.

Blending personal memoir with sterling reportage and astute analysis, Hunter Gault presents an Africa we rarely see. She looks first at South Africa, contrasting the country she first encountered as a young reporter — when she personally witnessed the brutality of apartheid — with the black-led, multiracial society of today, a nation undergoing one of the most radical social and economic experiments in modern times. She acknowledges the great imbalance in income in modern South Africa (where upwards of 30 to 40 percent of blacks are unemployed) and describes the ravaging effect of AIDS on the nation, but she also underscores the nation's commitment to affirmative action, describes how South African universities have opened their doors to black students, and debunks many of the myths about the violence of South African society. Likewise, Hunter-Gault looks at the continent-wide efforts to promote "an African Renaissance," illuminating the political and economic conditions in Rwanda, Mozambique, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Angola, and Sierra Leone. Finally, the book describes the challenges of reporting on the much-maligned continent and the efforts of African journalists to tell their own story.

A compelling book on a topic of vital importance, New News Out of Africa promises to re-define what is news about this vast and complex continent.

Review:

"A refreshing alternative to the dismal views of Africa's prospects that pervade the press." Kirkus Reviews

Synopsis:

Hunter gault attempts to answer the question, "What is Africa to Me?"as she explores the transforamtion of post-apartheid South Africa and the continent as a whole as it struggles towards democracy and towards a more stable position within global community.

About the Author

Charlayne Hunter-Gault has been a journalist for more than 40 years and has worked in every journalistic medium. She has received numerous awards for her reporting in general, and specifically for her coverage of Africa. In 1985, she received broadcast journalism's highest award — a George Foster Peabody for her 1985 five-part MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour series, "Apartheid's People." Hunter-Gault earned another Peabody in 1998 for her overall coverage of Africa for National Public Radio. She also won awards for "Rights and Wrongs," a television newsmagazine reporting on human rights, which she anchored. Hunter-Gault has lived in Africa since 1997, working as Chief Africa Correspondent for National Public Radio, based in Johannesburg, and later as Johannesburg Bureau Chief for CNN, a position she held until 2005, when she left to pursue independent journalistic projects, including reporting on the continent for NPR as a special correspondent. She is also the author of In My Place, a personal memoir of the Civil Rights Movement and her own role in it as the first black woman to attend the University of Georgia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements


Introduction


Ch. 1: South Africa, Then and Now


Ch. 2: Baby Steps to Democracy


Ch. 3: Reporting Renaissance


Notes


Index


What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
francis4622, August 28, 2006 (view all comments by francis4622)
Most grateful if this comment could be passed on to Ms Hunter-Gault also.

Having had the distinct priviledge of working in Uganda for 4 years as a World Bank consultant, and travelling the continent of Africa (including 3 of the major cities in South Africa), it was breathtakingly refreshing to see that someone from the West has FINALLY taken the time to try to depict the positive side of the 2nd largest continent of the world, and its challenges.

I think the author would have achieved her goal of further bolstering the positive image of the continent with a cover that reflected its cultural richness, economic progress, and/or its diversity (not in the western sense of this term, and the negativity that it usually implies), rather than the "much-of-the-same" type of depiction, which merely serves to further feed into existing stereotypes.

My sense is that this would NOT have been the preferred choice of Ms. Hunter-Gault. If it was, then the subtlety of her underlying motivation has alluded me completely. Perhaps it was publisher's option. If so, then the end result could be counterproductive, i.e. a turnoff to those who are, in fact, looking for "something new" out of Africa!
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(10 of 22 readers found this comment helpful)

Product Details

ISBN:
9780195177473
Subtitle:
Uncovering Africa's Renaissance
Author:
Hunter-Gault, Charlayne
Publisher:
Oxford University Press, USA
Subject:
Africa
Subject:
Politics and government
Subject:
Africa, sub-saharan
Subject:
Africa - General
Subject:
History, World | Africa
Series:
The W.E.B. Du Bois Institute Series
Series Volume:
5
Publication Date:
20071204
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Illustrations:
1 halftone
Pages:
208
Dimensions:
8.40x6.46x.78 in. .75 lbs.

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