Opening the two-day conference on October 15, KAS Media Africa Director Christoph Plate paid tribute to AfricaBlogging members for their dedication while also affirming the Foundation’s support of the network.

During their panel discussion, Cameroonian bloggers Anne Marie Befoune and Fotso Fonkam zeroed on the crux of geographic and ethnic tensions, along Francophone and Anglophone lines, that have dominated in the Central African country’s political and social landscape for decades.

In addition to insights from Cameroon, the event gave African political bloggers – from countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda – an opportunity to exchange views regarding other political and media-related topics and to broaden their skills in podcasting, as a form of story-telling.

The highlight of Day 2 was a speech – zooming in on the importance of content and context – by John-Allan Namu, a Kenyan investigative journalist and CEO of Un-Censored Africa. He challenged bloggers to not only keep in mind their readers but to also understand and respect them and their habits. Namu said bloggers, among others including journalists are duty-bound to always deliver their reports sincerely but to be mature enough to admit if they get it wrong or are accidentally misled.