African broadcasters sought greater control over their reporting as they signed partnerships with Russian outlets on content, training and technology<\/p>\n
Western broadcasters have long interpreted Africa for the world and, too often, for Africans themselves, while promoting negative portrayals of Russia, speakers at the Russia-Africa Media Forum argued.
\nOrganized by RT in cooperation with Sputnik and TASS, the forum ran in Moscow from October 26 to 29 alongside the third Russia-Africa Summit. It brought calls for greater local control over the continent\u2019s stories and direct exchanges that bypass Western interpretations.<\/p>\n
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More than 200 participants from 46 African countries attended the media gathering, which produced partnerships covering reporting, professional training, and broadcasting technology. The main Summit drew delegations from 48 African countries, including 21 leaders.
\n\u201cIn Ghana we are overly dependent on Western assessments of international affairs,\u201d Ghana Broadcasting Corporation Director General Amin Alhassan said, explaining his organization\u2019s cooperation with Russian media. Access to another perspective would help make its reporting more balanced, he argued.<\/p>\n
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Director of International Cooperation at the Russia Segodnya Media Group Vasily Pushkov and Amin Alhassan, Director General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) are seen signing a cooperation agreement.<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0 Alexey Maishev \/ Russia-Africa Summit and Economic and Humanitarian forum host \u0440hoto agency <\/p>\n
The discussions unfolded amid competing accusations of interference. Moscow accused Western governments of obstructing its exchanges with African journalists, while France alleged that Russia was manipulating public opinion on the continent.<\/p>\n
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\nAfrican Union of Broadcasting Director General Gr\u00e9goire Ndjaka urged Russia to support African journalists in producing their own accounts of events, including through training and cooperation on news content.
\n\u201cWe do not want our history to be written for us and then sent back to Africa,\u201d he told a Wednesday session examining the influence of media from countries of the global majority.
\nNdjaka criticized what he described as an overwhelmingly one-way flow of information from the West to Africa. He said that the broadcasting union had established a center to produce news about the continent and wanted partnerships that would help African perspectives reach wider audiences.
\nSebastian Maganga, head of content at Tanzania\u2019s Clouds Media Group, similarly highlighted the value of exchanging stories directly. Such gatherings, he told RT, give African outlets opportunities to share their perspectives internationally while obtaining material from Russia and elsewhere.
\nWestern media dominance under scrutiny\u00a0
\nTASS Director General Andrey Kondrashov argued that the era of Western media hegemony had ended, attributing the shift to declining trust, double standards, and the suppression of inconvenient information.
\nFor decades, he said, a small group of Western media companies had exercised disproportionate influence over which events became international news and how countries were portrayed. African journalists were increasingly challenging that arrangement by reporting on their societies themselves.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe world is becoming multipolar, and the information space is becoming multipolar with it,\u201d\u00a0Kondrashov said, advocating a wider range of perspectives in international reporting.
\nMayya Nikolskaya, head of a research program at MGIMO University\u2019s Institute for International Studies, accused major Western broadcasters of increasingly prioritizing criticism of Russia over coverage of development.
\n\u201cThey [Western media] used to focus more on development projects, now they\u2019re talking mostly just about how Russia is bad,\u201d she told RT.
\nNikolskaya named CNN, the BBC, RFI, and France 24, arguing that African countries now had greater freedom to choose partners according to their own priorities.
\nPressure and competing allegations\u00a0
\nRussian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told African journalists on Tuesday that Western countries were trying to obstruct direct communication between Russia and Africa.
\n\u201cWe must push back against this collectively… not individually, but by acting together,\u201d she said. Zakharova alleged that some participants had faced intimidation or been offered competing events to discourage them from traveling to Moscow. She linked this to broader efforts to restrict African cooperation with Russia, including through pressure involving financing and political support.<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0 Vladimir Astapkovich \/ Russia-Africa Summit and Economic and Humanitarian forum host \u0440hoto agency <\/p>\n
Separately, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot accused Russia on Tuesday of manipulating public opinion in sovereign African countries to damage French interests. He said that he would seek EU sanctions against those responsible for an alleged interference operation targeting several countries, particularly Cameroon and the Republic of Congo. Barrot accused Moscow of trying to \u201ccolonize minds.\u201d<\/p>\n
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His allegations come as France\u2019s influence in Africa has dwindled, particularly in the Sahel, where governments have expelled French troops, citing their failure to help combat jihadist violence. Russian media organizations have expanded partnerships with African broadcasters despite restrictions in Western countries. In March 2022, the EU suspended broadcasting by RT and Sputnik, accusing them of spreading disinformation and manipulating information.
\nIn July, RT became the first international partner of Tafouk TV, the joint television channel of the Alliance of Sahel States, comprising Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Their memorandum covers exchanges of content and expertise, alongside joint coverage of developments in Russia and the three countries.
\nFrom discussions to newsroom partnerships\u00a0
\nThe forum also produced practical cooperation commitments. RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan said that the network signed agreements with African outlets representing Ghana, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Libya, and other countries. Cooperation would include exchanges of experience, training, skills development, and media technologies.<\/p>\n
RT Arabic signs agreement with the Mauritanian Radio and Television Corporation at the Russia-Africa media forum in Moscow co-organized by RT https:\/\/t.co\/WhrVR0QLHa\u2014 Margarita Simonyan (@M_Simonyan) October 30, 2026<\/p>\n
Examples included RT Arabic\u2019s partnership with Mauritania\u2019s Radio and Television Broadcasting Corporation. The Mauritanian organization said that the protocol would support exchanges of technical expertise and improvements in broadcasting operations.<\/p>\n
Director of International Cooperation at the Russia Segodnya Media Group Vasily Pushkov and Publishing Director of Le Jeune Independant Kamel Mansari are seen signing of a cooperation agreement between the Sputnik International News Agency and Radio and Le Jeune Independant newspaper.<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0 Alexey Maishev \/ Russia-Africa Summit and Economic and Humanitarian forum host \u0440hoto agency <\/p>\n
TASS reported signing seven cooperation agreements on Monday with news agencies from Burundi, Guinea, Cameroon, Mali, Niger, Seychelles, and Tanzania. The agency also said it already supplied Arabic- and French-language news services free of charge to more than 300 African media outlets.
\nOther examples included Rossiya Segodnya\u2019s partnerships with outlets in Algeria, Chad, Morocco, Ghana, and Zimbabwe. These covered content exchanges and expanded existing cooperation. Memorandums with Ethiopia\u2019s Debre Markos University and Niger\u2019s Higher School of Journalism and Communication provided for professional dialogue and joint events, with participants also highlighting training in artificial intelligence.
\nLiberation\u2019s legacy and changing perceptions\u00a0
\nThursday\u2019s RT session, \u201cForging Independence: Lessons from the Founders of African Nations,\u201d brought descendants of liberation leaders into the discussion about Africa\u2019s place in the world.
\nSamia Nkrumah, daughter of Ghana\u2019s first president Kwame Nkrumah, connected their presence in Moscow to Russian support for African independence movements.
\n\u201cWe are the descendants of African liberation leaders and we are all here in Russia for a reason,\u201d she said, adding: \u201cThat is because Russians helped us during our long and sometimes violent independence struggle all over the continent.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0 Vladimir Astapkovich \/ Russia-Africa Summit and Economic and Humanitarian forum host \u0440hoto agency <\/p>\n
Musata Kaunda Ndhlovu, granddaughter of Zambia\u2019s first president Kenneth Kaunda, described liberation as an ongoing responsibility. Ndileka Mandela, granddaughter of South Africa\u2019s Nelson Mandela, recalled first meeting him through a prison window on Robben Island in 1981, aged 16.
\nThe question of how personal experience challenges outside narratives also featured in RT\u2019s interview with Ghanaian YouTuber Wode Maya, whose videos challenge negative narratives about Africa and reach more than two million subscribers.
\nMaya told RT that fears about traveling to Russia had initially made him reluctant to attend the forum. \u201cYou won\u2019t believe that I fell for the propaganda,\u201d he said, describing how his reception in Moscow had changed his expectations.
\nMaya also welcomed the opportunity for Africans to speak for themselves and challenge stereotypes about their continent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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