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Comment by hawkharris | Hacker News Reader

The United States' news coverage concerning Africa perpetuates these myths.

It seems as if 95% of news stories focus on poverty, war and chaos in the continent. They rarely go so far as to differentiate among countries.

In fact, many African nations are great centers for innovation. Kenya and Nigeria spring to mind for higher education and mobile computing.

As a way of confronting condescending stereotypes, I have often fantasized about organizing a group of Nigerian school children to "help build a school somewhere in America" — a twist on the cliche trip that many U.S. students take to Africa — because education in some Nigerian cities is far superior to most U.S. high schools.

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> It seems as if 95% of news stories focus on poverty, war and chaos in the continent.

That's because news stories, regardless of continent, focus on tragedy, war, and chaos; its not something special about Africa.

> As a way of confronting condescending stereotypes, I have often fantasized about organizing a group of Nigerian school children to "help build a school somewhere in America"

Sort of along those lines, http://www.africafornorway.no

> because education in some Nigerian cities is far superior to most U.S. high schools.

Do you know that for sure though? Isn't it possible that you are drawing a conclusion on a far away place based on some events/cultural ideas that are provocative enough to make it to your screen as a topic of interest?

Isn't that the same thing you are complaining about, just in reverse?

I base that conclusion on a comparison of students' performance on various aptitude tests, the likelihood that they will go to college and the percentage of those who find jobs related to their fields of study.

So then show us so we can take your conclusions seriously.

>It seems as if 95% of news stories focus on poverty, war and chaos in the continent. They rarely go so far as to differentiate among countries.

I can't go a month without an FT special on Nigeria or Tanzania. This may be more a critique of the news sources you are exposed to than media as a whole.

The United States' news coverage of the United States makes it seem like a pretty horrible place that nobody would want to live in. Bias certainly plays into it, but the larger problem is the fundamental nature of news reporting. The central fallacy is the idea that watching the news is a way to become informed about what's happening in the world. That's utterly false, it only informs you of some of the more notable or unusual events in the world, while largely ignoring more complex and long term developments.

they aren't really myths. This is just ignoring the cause twice... so it seems right. remember, they 'sell' aid.

what happens is, country A explores country B. country B is now in misery. Country A now gives out aid, while continuing to explore. Country A is still making country B miserable, but now feeling good about it.

...And this institution, in exchange for tax breaks, have to sell you the idea that the last step is not bad. While blatantly ignoring that the cause is the first step.

Of course Aid is not bad. What is bad is that it is at that point to begin with. And we all know that giving out handouts is necessary, but hardly the solution to the problem they advertise.

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