Why Chris Roper's Media Tactics Are Harmful to African Journalism

By Gillian Schutte

Chris Roper—self-styled strategist, a temporary Knight Fellow (thanks to the NED-funded International Centre for Journalists), once flaunting your achievements in African media: what an embarrassment you have become. Funny how you conveniently pop up whenever someone needs a hit piece to undermine whoever threatens your donor-driven agenda. It is as though Code for Africa, Media Monitoring Africa, Daily Maverick and your circle of usual ‘sleeper agents’ activate on cue, each of you a well-oiled cog in a monopoly of donor-funded crusades. You share the same backers, the same talking points, the same pieties about “transparency” and “accountability”—yet it is painfully transparent how you all collude to paint enemies in whichever shade of villain your sponsors prefer.

Now, the big prize is the Google fund—or whichever glossy grant your ecosystem is chasing to make up for the loss of USAID-affiliated funding. How convenient, then, that you have recently resumed your warpath against Dr Iqbal Survé. How utterly boring that you now subject us to the same old script in your articles for Daily Maverick and Financial Mail—routinely dismissing him as compromised, amoral, or some kind of public enemy. Why him, exactly? Because he chose to chart a different path, refusing to toe the line established by Western hegemony?

It is laughable to watch you smear Survé as though he is harming anyone by showcasing his life’s work in his own media platforms as if this is contemptible. What is truly contemptible is how mainstream, conservative “liberal” outlets have systematically deplatformed him, shutting him out and painting him as a pariah.

In a world where competition in media is cut-throat, it is not surprising to see you do US donor’s bidding. How else would a has-been like you survive? After all, you have positioned yourself as a Knight of the Oval Table Propaganda Cluster—a darling of the Western narrative—so you must keep your masters happy. The moment someone steps out of their good graces and threatens their soft power regime change arm, you are there to tear them down.

That is the real tragedy of your career, Chris. You claim to have done great things for African digital media, but it is obvious you have metamorphosed into an establishment errand boy—someone who proclaims moral righteousness while ignoring the deeper injustices all around you. Where is your righteous wrath against multinational corporations pillaging African resources and exploiting workers for profit? What about the suits in London, New York, or Toronto who treat our continent like their personal gold mine? Or does it just so happen that many of those corporations are tethered to the very donors underwriting your comfortable seat at the table?

It is all so transparent. You and your circle never train your sights on the real forces of unchecked capitalism. Instead, you pick easy or convenient targets—whoever your sponsors decide should be demonised. Meanwhile, truly ferocious offenders are safe behind their walls of money, rarely challenged by your so-called “independent” reporting. How noble of you.

And that is the point, is it not? By turning your guns on Survé, you avoid biting the hand that feeds. You will keep collecting funding from your philanthropic overlords as long as you obediently promote their worldview, never mind the ongoing usurpation of the majority you claim to care about. The irony is flagrant: you market yourself as a champion of free press, all while working to silence any voice you decide is unpalatable to your handlers—be it Survé’s or any journalist who does not parrot your line.

Survé, for his part, is not harming anyone by sharing his perspective. And let us not forget: Independent Media has countless excellent writers and a diverse readership—no matter how desperately your allies want to sneer and belittle them. It is patently clear that your readership is a beige blob of pearl-clutching conservative liberals. Audience envy much?

If you had any sense of genuine justice, you would be fighting to ensure a media landscape where multiple viewpoints can coexist. Instead, you wage a petty war against someone who has been conveniently labelled a problem by your funders and your ecosystem of media orgs trying desperately to hold onto your hegemonic position. It is a tired routine, and everyone can see through it.

You can keep brandishing your Knight Fellowship and rattling off all the philanthropic or journalistic distinctions you have amassed (on your own platforms nogal). You can keep broadcasting your stories of how you once revolutionised Mail & Guardian’s online reach. But what good is that now, if all you do is toe the establishment line? One day you might reflect on how you squandered your platform—merely serving as the guard dog for a monied clique, gleefully barking at any target they identify. The illusions of moral purity will fade, and all that will remain is the reality that you became a mouthpiece for global powerbrokers, safe in your nest of donor dollars.

So keep it up, Chris. Keep rolling out the same spin and painting Survé as some cartoonish arch-villain. But do not be surprised when the public sees you for what you really are: a convenient enforcer for a donor-driven narrative, too compromised to stand up against the genuine forces undermining African sovereignty. You have the gall to call others compromised; look in the mirror. This is what your career has devolved into—serving someone else’s interests, propped up by the philanthropic fiefdom that keeps you well fed, while actual injustices rage unchecked.

In the end, you are free to rationalise your actions however you like, but it is not fooling anyone. You have become exactly the kind of establishment pawn you once claimed to challenge. It is embarrassing, it is transparent, and it does more harm than good for the African media ecosystem. Keep priding yourself on “exposing corruption” when all you are really doing is protecting the powerful from genuine scrutiny, orchestrated by the same old donor circuits. The only one you expose in the end is yourself.

* Gillian Schutte is a film-maker, and a well-known social justice and race-justice activist and public intellectual. Follow Gillian on X - @GillianSchutte1 and on Facebook - Gillian Schutte.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.