Africans ask: 'Why isn't anyone telling the good news?'

He cites Barclays Bank's pending $5.5 billion purchase of 60 percent of South Africa's largest bank, Absa, as evidence of the changing climate. It is Barclays' biggest investment outside Britain in its 100-year history. Observers say it shows even conservative bankers can be bullish on Africa.

Another news-balancing effort comes from a pair of South African men. Fed up with overwhelmingly negative cocktail-party talk about their country, they developed books and videos called "South Africa: The Good News."

They reminded South Africans of the country's progress since the start of its multiracial democracy in 1994. For instance, only 63 percent of South Africans were functionally literate back then. Now 80 percent are. The country's notoriously high murder rate has decreased by 25 percent since 1994. And South Africa ranks 25th among the world's economies, putting it in the top 15 percent.

Now the two men are turning their efforts to the rest of the continent, including focusing on the growth in multiparty democracy as evidence of dramatic progress. In the 1980s just a handful of free and fair elections took place in Africa. There were at least that many last year alone, although there are still numerous dictatorial, even tyrannical, regimes in places like Zimbabwe and Sudan.

Indeed, context is key to getting to the truth about Africa, argues Brett Bowes, one of the "Good News" founders. Many places in Africa may be a mess, he says, "But the question is: Was this a bigger mess five years ago or not?" In other words, has there been progress?

One thing blocking a fuller perception of Africa's progress may be implicit racism, argues Charles Stith, former US ambassador to Tanzania, now at Boston University.

There's a historic framework, he says, "that by definition sees Africa ... and Africans as inferior and negative," and makes most stories about the continent negative.

By contrast, he says, "China has problems, but we see and hear other things about China. Russia has problems, yet we see and read other things about Russia." That same standard, he says, should apply to Africa.

To be sure, there's plenty of poverty and suffering across Africa. "We absolutely need coverage of wars and famines," says Pineau, the filmmaker. For instance, not to cover Sudan's Darfur province, where the US says genocide has occurred, "would be criminal."

But she turns the issue back to US readers and reporters and cites the Columbine school shooting, the Oklahoma City bombing, and other US tragedies, asking: "How would you feel as an American if all anyone ever talked about was the disasters of America?"

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