ANF Media Community Newsletter January 2025
 Find out how your work can benefit from AI, meet the journalist championing a new narrative about DRC, and read innovative stories by Africans.  1. Journalism trends: To what extent is AI transforming newsrooms? According to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism’s report, ‘Journalism, Media, and Technology Trends and Predictions 2025’, AI may improve the writing process, but it can't replace the human elements of journalism. So, what can journalists do with AI? The report shows 75% of respondents plan to transform text articles into audio (in multiple languages or tones), 70% plan to use article summarizing tools, and over half (56%) are planning chatbot/AI search functionality for audiences to interact with. Around a third (36%) are looking to experiment with turning text stories into video.  2. Who’s funding:Is there an underreported issue you want to explore? The Pulitzer Center is offering grants to fund underreported African stories. Projects must focus on issues like sanitation, water, education, maternal health, and climate resilience. Criteria: Open to full-time and freelance reporters, photographers, radio/audio journalists, television/video journalists, and documentary filmmakers. Deadline: Rolling. More info.  3. Training opportunity: The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism is looking for 30 mid-career journalists who will spend October 2025 to January 2026 researching and building networks to improve their craft and explore journalism in depth. Fellows will work on any research idea and will receive full funding, including a stipend for living and travel costs. Deadline: 13 Febuary. More info  4. In the spotlight: Reacting to a European documentary about the DRC, ‘Stop Filming Us’ by Joris Postema, Congolese filmmaker Bernadette Vivuya, together with Rwandan filmmaker Kagoma Ya Twahirwa, decided to re-edit the same footage originally taken from a Western perspective. They expanded it by including a Congolese perspective in their work, ‘Stop Filming Us but Listen.’ Bernadette used other archive images to dig deeper and shed more light on the issue of representation, championing a new narrative about DRC. Bernadette Vivuya is a Congolese visual journalist and filmmaker based in Goma, eastern DRC. Her feature, titled "As Incremental Efforts to End Child Labour by 2025 Persist, Congo’s Child Miners – Exhausted and Exploited – Ask the World to “Pray for Us,” won the 2021 Michael Elliott Award for Excellence in African Storytelling. As a journalist, she collaborates with various media, including Equal Times, and has produced video reports for Global Africa Press (an American news agency and contributor to the Voice of America) as well as Deutsche Welle.  5. Stories that moved us: Find out how Frank Thoya developed "Samaki Biscuits," nutritious cookies made from fish, cassava, and fruits, to combat malnutrition among children and pregnant women;how, Raymond Katana’s creative recycling efforts help mitigate environmental pollution while producing unique art pieces that beautify the community, and why Former banker Abdullahi Bulle founded Nuria Books in Nairobi to empower self-published African authors. Follow @BirdStoryAgency on social media for more stories that represent Africa better, away from stereotypes of poverty, disease, poor leadership, corruption and conflict. Media outlets that want to use bird content, for free, can contact tom@africainsight.co.ke |