Fake news and the pursuit of truth in the media is not an issue unique to American jounalists today. Following the publication of her book in 2014 entitled Global Muckraking: 100 Years of Investigative Reporting from Around the World, Anya Schiffrin, Director of the Technology, Media, and Communications specialization at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, pursued another opportunity to bring to light the struggles of investigative journalism, this time focusing on the narratives of journalists in Africa. Schiffrin recently spoke with the Columbia Journalism Review about the importance of this collection and how the perseverance of journalists facing threats, imprisonment, and financial hardship while pursuing stories of critical importance is a lesson that can be learned by American journalists as well.
The volume she edited, African Muckraking: 100 Years of African Investigative Journalism, is a collection of pieces produced by investigative journalists over the years. The pieces included within the collection highlight Africa’s long history of investigative journalism and concern topics of all kinds, ranging from pieces on the scare tactics of the apartheid government in South Africa to feminist writings from Tunisia in the 1930s to labor conditions on potato farms in South Africa. The collection seeks to highlight the lessons of a collective struggle of investigative journalism and recognize the historical and modern-day muckrakers in African journalism.
Read the full conversation here: https://www.cjr.org/q_and_a/what-american-journalists-can-learn-from-their-african-colleagues.php
