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| Former President Bill Clinton worked a crowd of rural villagers as he visited Neno, Malawi, last month. It was his second
stop on a whirlwind, week-long trip to Africa. Win Macnamee/Getty Images for the Clinton Foundation |
Star power brings attention to Africa
Money soon follows, but do the A-listers understand the issues?
from the August 22, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 4
The spotlight follows
Seventeen hours after leaving New York, with a pit stop in the Dominican Republic en route, Clinton arrives in Johannesburg, South Africa, to begin his journey. The first thing he does – before any visits to after-school programs, talks about climate change, or meetings about antiretroviral drug initiatives – is drop in on his friend Mr. Mandela. "Happy Birthday Madiba!" he sings, eyes twinkling, using the local nickname for the 89-year-old. "You are my inspiration in so much that I do." The elder man flashes a broad smile.
"Do these celebrities understand our issues?" asks Mandela's wife, activist Graça Machel, the former first lady of Mozambique. "Well, some do, some don't, to be honest."
But what is uniformly true about celebrities, she says, is that they get attention – for themselves, to some extent, but also for the issues they choose to highlight. And money usually follows attention.
“In some parts of this globe, there are persons that will listen to sports stars ... but they won’t listen to me,” explains Ms. Machel. “In some parts of the world, a musician will have a better audience than a priest.... People will listen to a filmmaker, but not a woman leader.” As long as these celebrities clearly define the issue they are dealing with and the audience they are addressing, she maintains, “Everyone has a space to participate.”
Lionello Boscardi, the chief “celebrity handler” for the UN’s World Food Program has worked with the likes of Angelina Jolie, designer Georgio Armani, marathon runner Paul Tergat, opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, and, most recently, actress Drew Barrymore. “Usually celebrities are paid tens of thousands, even millions, to endorse products,” he says. “Of course, we don’t pay them, but we get much the same benefits from working with them, namely, they raise our profile.”
Covering Clinton’s annual Africa sojourn in previous years have been The New Yorker, New York Magazine, and Fortune magazine. This year, The Monitor, ABC-TV, and Elle and Ebony magazines sent reporters. GQ magazine sent a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” writer, a world-renowned photographer, and a senior editor – all following Clinton into the schoolyards of South Africa and antiretroviral drug warehouses of Tanzania.
Rarely does Africa get such high-gloss attention.
According to a June report by Julie Hollar of the national media watch group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), wrapping Africa stories in celebrity news is par for the course. For example, she notes, in the week that “Blood Diamond,” a Hollywood film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, was released in theaters last December, ABC, CBS, and NBC news programs mentioned the role of diamonds fueling Sierra Leone’s bloody civil war 11 times. But during the entire length of that war, which lasted from 1991 to 2002, it was mentioned an average of twice a year.
Looking at one US network’s overall coverage of Africa over 2005-06, FAIR found that NBC Nightly News ran 70 Africa-related segments, of which 18, or one-quarter, featured celebrities. “Many of those [stories] focused on Bono, with whom NBC anchor Brian Williams traveled to Africa in May 2006,” points out FAIR, “... a trip that generated seven stories, six of which prominently featured the rock star.”
Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) critique points at a similar trend in the July Vanity Fair special Africa issue. Guest edited by Bono himself, the issue features 20 different covers, each of a different person involved in the “conversation” about Africa. Oprah, Brad Pitt, Madonna, and Jordan’s Queen Rania – a UNICEF advocate – participated. But only three Africans (of which only one currently lives in Africa) are featured. “This is a conversation ... by a group of well-known celebrities,” says CJR writer Gal Beckerman. “They are the ones here with agency to tell the story of Africa.”
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