Monday, July 18, 2005

The Rose-Colored Glasses Channel

Africa Channel Bows Sept. 1 July 18, 2005 By Anthony Crupi A team of international television executives is hoping that a new network focusing on Africa will change the way Americans perceive the continent. Launching September 1, the Africa Channel will offer viewers a look beyond the litany of hardships and terrors Westerners see as the defining characteristics of the continent, presenting instead a mélange of entertainment, lifestyle and information programming never before seen in the U.S. A brief montage of clips screened by James Makawa, CEO and co-founder of the Africa Channel, suggested a hybrid of the Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel and any number of general entertainment networks, all threaded through by the region’s rich cultural and historic lifeblood.

Imagine that, a cable channel whose only mission is to whitewash (you should excuse the expression) the poverty, brutality, corruption and total anarchy of an entire continent. It's like Martha Stewart demonstrating how to make a delicate flan, while behind her a rape-murder is taking place. Scuse me, Africa channel, but in my mind, it isn't the melange of entertainment and lifestyle that define a continent, it's precisely the hardships and terrors. Your programming will do nothing to address the root problems of that continent. Changing perception is not solving problems.

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