Tom Gitaa, Kenyan immigrant to the U.S. and founder of Mshale, the African community newspaper based in Minneapolis, talks to Shailja Patel about the ethos behind the newspaper and its impact on the immigrant community there.

It's been a hectic weekend so far for Tom Gitaa, and it's not even Saturday afternoon yet. "I work 24 hours," says the publisher of Mshale, the African community newspaper based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Begun in 1994, as a 2-page photocopied newsletter, Mshale is now a free monthly paper, covering news and issues relevant to the pan-African immigrant community. 15,000 copies a month are distributed through the Northeastern US states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

Gitaa is also the host and presenter of Talking Drum, a current affairs talk show on ABN- America (African Broadcasting Network). ABN airs on Channel 749 Dish Network. He has just returned from a trip to Gambia, to set up local production operations for ABN's coverage of the upcoming AU summit. On his schedule this morning was an interview with the visiting Moroccan ambassador to the US. At midnight last night, Gitaa learned that a pipe had burst at ABN's studio, requiring a flurry of calls to relocate the meeting to the presidential suite at a downtown hotel. After this interview with me, it's back to Mshale's offices to work on the paper for the rest of the day, before heading out to cover a community event this evening. All in a day's work for Gitaa, who says that what drives him is: "the satisfaction of finishing something and seeing that others benefit from it."

Gitaa was born and raised in Mombasa, Kenya. He arrived in the US in 1990 to study business and marketing in college. His career in publishing began when he and two fellow-students, Peter Kegode and Edward Kariuki, noticed the dearth of news from the continent available to Africans in America. This was before the internet media revolution. They began to compile a weekly newsletter which they distributed to other Africans in the local community.

"In 1994, it was a 2-page printed compilation, mailed out to 30 subscribers at $8 / month. After 6 months, we had 80 subscribers at $10 / month, and the newsletter had grown to 4 - 6 pages. 1997 was the turning point. That was when the Kenya Nation newspaper came online. So people no longer needed Mshale to get their news. We switched our content to analysis instead, but didn't fly. Subscriptions were flat for 6 months.

"Then we noticed that the greatest response we got was to local news about the African community here, which no other media was reporting. Any coverage of Africa or Africans in American newspapers presented us as exotic and bizarre. I realized I could do a better job of explaining who we are in this place. Why not do a profile of this taxi driver from Ghana struggling to feed his family? Or that Somali woman who has opened a boutique?

"As a business major, looking at the demographic, I could see this was a growing market. In 1990, there were 20,000 African immigrants in Minnesota. In 2006, there were 80,000, according to state census. My personal estimate is that the number is closer to 100,000. Apparently, Minnesota has the largest population of Somalis outside Somalia - it used to be Toronto, but now Minnesota has taken over.

"In November 2001, we put out our first free edition in newsprint."

What is Gitaa's take on the state of media in Africa?

"Quality is rising. Democratization needs supporting instruments - free press, free speech, free airwaves. There have been complaints that freeing the airwaves from state monopolies has led to a bombardment of mediocre pop culture products from the west. But for me, the key question is - are the airwaves free? Can we say what we need to say? Then we will grow and develop towards it."

What media models did he look to in Mshale's development?

"African American community media, and the alternative press. Their experience is somewhat different from ours, but the business model - advertiser-driven free newspapers - is effective. The subscriber-driven model we began with is a tough model one. A large portion of our readership are student-workers, meaning Africans working to put themselves through college. Or newly arrived immigrants. They move frequently, and they are hard to keep track of for mailing out copies and renewing subscriptions."

It is only in the last year that Gitaa has been able to quit his day-job in marketing, and focus full-time on Mshale. He still wears multiple hats, as publisher, editor, marketing director, reporter. Inevitably, there are conflicts of interest between the different roles.

"My goal as we grow is to separate the editorial role and the publishing role as our funding allows. A lot of advertisers don't understand why it's important to have separation between editorial content and ad content.

"For example, we may have as a major advertiser the owners / managers of a large apartment complex with a lot of African immigrant tenants. Our readership make up one of their key markets. If we receive reports that African tenants are being mistreated, we dispatch a reporter to investigate. S/he will speak to the tenants, speak to the complex managers, draw her conclusions and write a report. We run the report. The next thing we know, the media buyer for this company is on the phone to me:

"Mr. Gitaa, we don't like the way you put things in the article that you ran on the complex. It showed our client in a negative light."

"Next edition - no ad from this client. And if they are one of our two Fortune 500 advertisers, then that may prompt the second Fortune 500 company to take its ad elsewhere.

"Our business model is ad-driven. Ads are our revenue.

"That's where you say: "You know what? Keep your money." As publisher, I am accountable to the African immigrant community. My focus is whatever impacts that community. We will not do anything that will not serve that community well.

"This is what makes readers respect you - when they can see you lost money, but you did not let it influence the content of the paper. It is a difficult choice - you risk going out of business. It's the perpetual dilemma of the publisher.”

Has Mshale also come up against divisions and internal conflicts within the African community?

"Yes, several times. There are deep internal rifts within the immigrant community. When we reported on a few Somali women who are successful entrepreneurs in Minneapolis, it provoked deep animosity from some senior leaders within the community. We were just telling the success story of our people, but their reaction was very derogatory."

Given these rifts, and the diversity of African immigrants - across socio-economic groups, class, nationality, origin - can one even speak usefully of a pan-African immigrant community with common interests?

"You are correct about the diversity. But from my years of building Mshale, I see 3 uniting interests across these differences.

"First is the issue of immigration. All immigrants from Africa, whatever their socio-economic status, wherever they come from, are interested in creating a legislative climate that supports their rights to build a life here, and allows the possibility to bring their families here. They are all equally affected by anti-immigrant sentiment and the conservative ideology of closed borders.

"The most-read page of Mshale is the immigration page. It is written by the legal counsel of Blackwell Igbanugo - the largest black-operated law firm in the US. The leading partner, Eugene Igbanugo, was one of the first advertisers in the initial Mshale newsletter, and since then, there has not been a single issue of Mshale that has not carried their ad.

"The second uniting interest is that of self-development. We all arrive here with a common work ethic, the drive to take advantage of opportunities to realize our dreams. We are all aspiring. But we don't shut our eyes to the need for social support systems and networks, the understanding that people need a hand up to get on their feet.

"I believe in the capitalist system. I come from a family of business people. I can say that it works. But I don't understand, for example, the public outcry over the welfare system from the Republicans. If you look at the big picture, the US welfare system takes less than 1% of the federal budget!

"We are a pan-African newspaper. I take that seriously. I get frustrated with other community papers / media that present themselves as "Pan African", yet 80% of the content is skewed towards a particular region. If you call yourself Pan African, then represent every region of Africa. At Mshale, we try to be a model of broad coverage across every region and segment of the African immigrant community."

Does he see community media such as Mshale having an impact on the coverage of Africa and Africans in mainstream American media?

"Many of our readers are journalists and editors from mainstream media outlets. They use Mshale as the gauge, the barometer of what's going on in the African community here. They read it to stay on top of that niche.

"Our website is an archive of information, and is often used as a resource for research about the African immigrant community. We also field calls frequently from those seeking knowledge on particular countries, regions or communities, for business or study. We have become a reference source on Africa."

Looking back over the 12 years from the inception of Mshale to it's current burgeoning success, what does Gitaa see as the key to successful community publishing?

"Relationship building. In the beginning, when we were just 3 people with no track record, it was very hard to establish credibility, to get interviews. No one knew who we were. But with persistence, and steady presence, they get to know you and to respect what you are doing. We now have very strong relationships with the International Leadership Institute (a leading African American organization that brings notable Africans to the US) and the Minneapolis International Centre (which hosts tours of visiting Heads of State and world figures). They call us whenever something relevant to Mshale is on their calendar.

"All the local immigrant community associations know they can count on us. If they let us know what they are doing, we will give them coverage.

"Mshale tells the African immigrant community that whatever direction we go in in this country, we don't need to forget how we look at ourselves. We need to make sure people know who we are."

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* Shailja Patel is an Asian African poet and theater artist. Visit her at www.shailja.com

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org