I just ran across a new book out about Africa written by one of my favorite journalists, Charlayne Hunter-Gault:  New News out of Africa: Uncovering Africa’s Renaissance.  When was the last time you saw a media headline about something positive happening in Africa?  Here’s a whole book!

A 20-some year veteran of PBS, Hunter-Gault was one of the few US reporters to provide responsible coverage of Somalia in the early ’90s. She also helmed one of the most important shows on television "Rights & Wrongs," focused on human rights stories, which proved too hot for PBS to handle and was quickly cancelled.  She later moved to South Africa with her businessman husband, and reports for NPR occassionally.

The last journalist’s book about Africa that included something beyond death and destruction was also written by an African American woman journalist, Lynne Duke, of the Wapo, who penned Mandela, Mobutu, and Me: A Newswoman’s African Journey.
(There’s a great scene in the former Zaire where she ditches a white reporter for NPR whose skin color is creating problems).