Last week we were back for the Baraza Media Lab’s second Africa Media Festival, which was held in the open front yard of the National Museum, and tents in its gardens.
Fifty per cent of the delegates were women. About 550 tickets that were available on sale were snapped up before the cut-off date, leaving many grumbling. Folks from 23 countries picked from a menu ranging from presentations of the threats and fortunes artificial intelligence (AI) were bringing to journalism, scary tales of the havoc “digital mercenaries” were wreaking with fake news and disinformation, to tales of how to still make money in these hellish times for, especially, more traditional media. There were many moments of laughter, with a good fellow from the Centre of Technology in Bulawayo presenting their cute news-reading bot called “Alice”. We heard that Zimbabwean men, probably drunk on the country’s popular beer, Zambezi, have not stopped sending “Alice” messages asking to take her out for a drink.
