Euronews and Africanews: a new media group serving news diversity

Euronews and Africanews: a new media group serving news diversity
By Charlotte Cullen
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It’s been a year of change for Euronews: a new majority shareholder, a new world headquarters and the arrival of a new sister channel – Africanews.

At MIPTV in Cannes, CEO Michael Peters presented a new group founded on one vision: promoting diversity of viewpoints. Euronews’ new baseline “All Views” is part of its goal to tackle disinformation and ‘infobesity’ – the idea that in a world with more information than ever we are drowning in quantity and lacking perspective.

Michael Peters explained the philosophy: “Many are trying to impose on the consumer their own perspective about the news of the world. I think an organisation like us should try to empower the consumers. At Euronews we think that giving them as many views as possible is the answer”.

The group’s CEO also unveiled that this spring Euronews will get a new look, including a complete graphic overhaul, a revamped, responsive website and a whole new eco-system of non-linear services. Euronews wants to cater to new consumer habits that emphasise multi-screen viewing.

The full extent of the transformation of Euronews cannot be revealed until the new project ‘Euronews Next’ is approved by its supervisory board but even more changes that embrace technology and transform production are anticipated soon.

Euronews is well established in Europe – consumed by more than 40 million people per day, according to Global Web Index – but the group feels this revolution is vital to stay impactful in an ultra-competitive sector.

Africanews

On April 20 the first independent, multi-lingual pan-African news outlet Africanews is due to go on air. On that date it will launch across sub-Saharan Africa in 33 countries and into more than 7 million homes. Michael Peters explained the relationship between the two channels: “We are not coming to Africa to give the point of view of Europeans to Africans… we bring our expertise of producing multilingual content at a reasonable cost… only Africans will run the daily agenda of the news.”

Africanews, which is produced in Pointe-Noire by a team of 85, shares Euronews’ mission of independence and diversity. It was a point reiterated by Michael Peters in Cannes: “As a media professional I am thankful to President Sassou Nguesso for having allowed us to do this project in his country, he is the only one who offered us the possibility of freedom of expression… We haven’t received any pressure that would mean we couldn’t work in freedom.”

While you’re waiting for the launch of Africanews on air you can find it online at africanews.com, on Facebook and on Twitter.

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