Minority Africa is a digital publication using data driven multimedia journalism to tell minority (and often solutions) stories across Africa. You can read more about our workhere.
What We’re Looking For
We are looking for writers, journalists, and filmmakers who have an interest in reporting stories focused on minorities within the African continent. While we cover minority rights generally, we are inclined to lookout for solutions stories and are more likely to commission a story about how marginalized groups and people are responding. A solution story, in this case, is one that considers what’s working for African minorities and then centers on it. This is in many ways because we believe that minorities are underrepresented in conventional media and that when they do get portrayal, it is often from the lens of the problem.
Our response to this is to convey stories from Africa about minorities regarding the solutions that have been implemented and so, we will not often commission stories that concentrate on the problem.
With a lean on data, our stories are often multimedia features. We will publish anything from text to video and photos. Our other requirement is that proposed ideas have a lot of data to back them up, whether existing or with a detectable possibility of data collection.
Our features are substantially character-driven. More often than not, we employ strictly on the ground reporting as all our pieces are accompanied by a dateline. Our stories are web-friendly but we allow for a lot of description as well, we have a soft spot for long-form storytelling and we do not exactly have a strict word limit.
We want to follow specific people and events and contextualize their relevance in a wider world. We love big interventions, but we equally love small ones as well. How are small solutions solving big problems for minority communities and persons in Africa? How are small solutions solving small problems? We want to focus on these solutions that are in place and that work for African minorities and then communicate them to a wider audience. We accordingly prefer to read about solutions that are engineered by minorities themselves rather than formal non-governmental organizations. We also love informal solutions, everyday interventions, what this means for us is solutions that on the surface do not look like solutions and can consequently be neglected.
Time-sensitive pieces do not work for us as we like to take out time to flesh a story further, to understand and communicate it in a much profound way. We love vibrant quotes and the color that comes with a story reported from the ground, we love intriguing pictures and carefully shot videos that supplement this. Although our website is published in English, we have a longing for other languages besides English as this is the very reason, we exist in the first place, and so we accept and, on the whole, keep our eyes out for video features that are shot entirely in indigenous African languages. Features of this nature must be accompanied by English subtitles.
Our features are very niche, this means that they are very specific and that they focus on definite places within certain countries in Africa. We particularly want more features from countries within the continent with smaller populations and which are not reported on as often. We will accept proposals for series or two/three-part features. Solutions journalism for us is equally an accountability model and so most of our pieces involve expert opinion on the implemented solution. Where appropriate, do suggest an expert in your pitch as well.
The primary category in which we publish in the first person is our Voices category which is rudimentarily an interactive blog to talk about pertinent minority issues as they occur.
How to pitch us
To pitch us, tell us who you are, what you have done and what your story is. Do include links to your work if available on the internet at the bottom of your email. It’s important to share a personal connection to the story if it does exist as we are particular about commissioning reporters who are minorities themselves.
We do not care so much about the previous experience of the reporter as we do about how strong an idea is, and about the willingness of the reporter to tell that particular story. We are open to commissioning reporters who have no prior reporting experience but writing or corresponding filming knowledge is a must.
What this means is that if you have been writing personal blogs but never actually reported pieces for mainstream media houses, we are open to working with you. We want to work with new voices, with voices who have prior not had the safe space that we believe we provide, and so your chances of a commission are stronger if you tell us what your idea is and why it relates to you on a personal level.
It is not to say that we will not commission journalists who are not a part of the minority for the story they are pitching, it is, however, to say that we want to work with more journalists who are part of the minority they want to report on. When pitching, it is important as well that you have a clear idea of what medium works best for your story. After your idea has been accepted, the team equally decides which of our various multimedia forms is best for your story but it’s vital that you suggest one or more forms to us as well.
If your pitch is accepted, you will usually work with at least two editors and a sub to move your story to completion. Our editors are experienced with working with new writers and contributors.
In some instances, we will occasionally put out a call for the kind of freelancers we want per time. Please visit our Careers page if you want any information on this and subscribe toour newsletterto get our occasional job alerts.
Whom to pitch:
All pitches should be submitted using our pitch form here. We prefer and encourage that you submit your pitch via the form. Nonetheless, if you are unable to pitch using the form, then email pitches to editorial@minorityafrica.org. Note that pitches sent on email take a longer time for us to get to. For pitches sent over our form, you will hear from us within 21 days if we are interested in exploring your story further. Please give at least 21 days before following up. Our team meets every week to discuss pitches we have during our editorial meetings, feedback on each pitch is given and then communicated to the reporter.
When to pitch/How much we pay:
We accept pitches on a rolling basis and pay between $100 – $200 for standard multimedia features depending on the extent of reporting involved. We also reimburse transportation costs of up to $50. We can in some cases pay above that but this will have to be negotiated with an editor. We try to pay within 15 – 30 days following publication.
All our pitches are accepted on an on the spec basis which means that we do not offer a kill fee in the event that a story is not published. This occurrence is, however, very unlikely as our team of editors will do their best to ensure every commissioned piece gets published.
Please pitch us. Direct your inquiries about pitching to editorial@minorityafrica.org.
