JOHANNESBURG: Late one night time, South African journalist Simon Allison awakened his spouse with an thought: a weekly African newspaper for Africans, distributed through WhatsApp.
She informed him to return to sleep, and “keep it for the morning”. But that was the start of The Continent, in the course of the pandemic.
Even although it’s revealed as a PDF file and distributed on a messaging platform, The Continent looks like an old style newspaper: Catchy headlines, quick tales, reported items and interviews.
Not to say the eagerly awaited quiz, to check how a lot readers know their continent.
And it’s free, accessible solely through WhatsApp, probably the most extensively used messaging system in Africa.
A Zimbabwean each day, 263Chat, was the trendsetter in sharing newspapers on WhatsApp, recalled Allison throughout an interview within the tranquil backyard of his suburban Johannesburg home.
“We wanted to create a newspaper, not a website,” he mentioned, birds chirping away, whereas a cat roamed round and a lawnmower buzzed within the distance.
Kiri Rupiah, 34, the crew’s distributor and “geek” mentioned the paper has helped to filter the deluge of knowledge that got here with the uncertainties of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Our families started using us as informal fact-checkers. ‘Is this true about Covid?’ And all these exchanges were happening on WhatsApp,” mentioned Rupiah, with stylish glasses and a smile brightened by dimples.
“We are different than most newsrooms who want lots of subscribers,” she mentioned. “I want 10 people who are engaged, that are going to share with six or seven people they know.”
“They also have access to us,” she added. “It creates community and trust.”
A college professor was considered one of their first followers.
“He shares the newspaper every week with 50 people,” mentioned Rupiah and since he recommends it, they’re more likely to learn it.
She has cellphone numbers of all the practically 17,000 subscribers, even receiving “a nude by mistake” from one over-eager subscriber.
“He was super apologetic,” mentioned Rupiah.
No censorship
Barely two weeks handed from that first, late-night thought and the primary challenge in April 2020, mentioned the bespectacled Allison, who transformed his visitor room into the newspaper workplace.
Things moved quick. He acquired assist from three journalism college students, who have been glad to maintain busy throughout the pandemic, and employed a couple of freelancers, paying them from his personal pocket for the primary few months.
The debut version went out to family and friends, however “after 48 hours, we had 1,000 subscribers. We achieved virality in a week”, mentioned Allison.
At the time he was the Africa editor of the Mail and Guardian, a dynamic South African weekly.
With his co-founder Sipho Kings, they went fundraising, with pro-democracy charities chipping in.
“Funders see us as a weapon against disinformation, an innovative way to combat it,” he mentioned.
For now they’ve secured funding for their tightly budgeted working prices over the following two years.
The energetic crew of journalists of their 30s – primarily based in South Africa, but in addition in Uganda and the UK – is teeming with story concepts.
“If we had more funding we could do more fun things,” mentioned Allison, who has his eyes set on launching a French or perhaps a Kiswahili version.
Looking again, he’s happy with a few of their groundbreaking work thus far.
One of their notable tales got here in February 2021, underneath the headline: “The country where Covid doesn’t exist”. It checked out Tanzania, the place the president had declared Covid didn’t exist – whilst hospitals and cemeteries have been overflowing.
Distributing through WhatsApp is quick and handy, but in addition protects in opposition to censorship.
“Governments can censor print, websites as well. That’s pretty easy,” mentioned Allison.
“But WhatsApp messages encrypted and published from South Africa, which has strict media laws… there is no way to censor.” – AFP
