PANAPRESS

To understand the history and mission of the Pan African News Agency (PANA also referred to as PANAPRESS), it is necessary to return to the 1970s when independent African nations began to question the inadequate and negative coverage that the Western news media gave them, and how the one-way flow of information, ownership, and management patterns favored Europe and the United States to their disadvantage. This information imbalance was first addressed in the late 1970s when Senegalese-born Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow became UNESCO’s director general (1974–1987). Under M’Bow’s watch, UNESCO commissioned a report, Many Voices One World, also known as the MacBride report, to explore the issue and to determine possible initiatives. It was out of this report that the Organization of African Unity on July 20, ...