Africa Table: Outsourcing Journalism in Kenya: The Increasing Influence of Political Cartoonists and Independent Commentators

Join the Center for African Studies for their weekly lunchtime seminar series.
Speaker: Dickens Olewe, Digital Content Manager, The Star, Kenya; John S. Knight Journalism Fellow 2014-2015, Stanford University
Operating in an increasingly hostile media environment, the Kenyan media has unwittingly outsourced hard hitting and investigative journalism to cartoonists and independent commentators. A mixture of repressive media laws and commercial interests has seen the media appear uninterested in its watchdog role.
Join journalism pioneer Dickens Olewe as he discusses the outsourcing of journalism in Kenya. Olewe is the founder of African SkyCAM, a drone journalism project. He is currently working on developing best practice guidelines to encourage responsible and safe use of UAVs in journalism. Olewe has launched several innovative approaches to journalism, including at the Star newspaper a project on collaborative journalism that involved citizens contributing stories through a mobile app. He also lead the creation of a health data portal to kickstart data journalism in the newsroom. As webmaster and digital content manager of Star newspaper, he created and executes the company's digital strategy. Olewe also advises Hivisasa.com, a mobile news startup in Kenya.