‘Media reparations’ for Africa’s diaspora: Accounting for global news media’s harms

The Leeds University Centre for African Studies (LUCAS) and School of Media and Communication are pleased to host a research seminar with Dr. David Cheruiyot (University of Groningen, The Netherlands). 

Please RSVP to c.paterson@leeds.ac.uk if you wish to attend. A link will be available for those wishing to attend remotely.

In 2023, the Scott Trust, the owners of The Guardian, issued a formal public apology to the descendants of enslaved people over its founder’s link to Britain’s slave economy. At the same time, Scott Trust committed to what it referred to as a “programme of restorative justice” (Mohdin 2023). As part of this programme, it set aside a “restorative justice fund” of US$12 million to be paid as “reparations” to the descendants of enslaved African persons in the Caribbean. Similarly, other news organisations around the world have issued formal apologies to victims of slavery, colonialism and other historical injustices that resulted from their practices or business, and even initiated media reform projects (for example, The New York Times and New Zealand’s Stuff). This study focuses on the global wave of media reckoning following the Black Lives Matter Movement and the implications of various media repair projects that address media harms associated with race, colonialism, and indigeneity. The special focus is on representational harms (historical racial misrepresentation or stereotyping through the news e.g., in news reporting about Africa) and how recent global media’s reparative projects seek to address historical harms through a variety of reform projects that are meant to reconfigure media business, journalistic practices, and overhaul media systems that perpetuate racial injustices.

David Cheruiyot is an Assistant Professor of Media and Journalism Studies at the University of Groningen. His current research examines the implications of harms and failures (present and historical) of journalistic institutions on global communities. He also explores how public criticism influences journalistic institutions broadly, and specifically in periods of digital disruptions and also, during media reckoning over historical injustices in relation to colonialisation, indigeneity, gender, or race. His research has been published in journals such as Journalism Studies, Media, Culture & Society and International Journal of Communication.