12. The Final Word

Brian offers a summary of ‘Anti-Corruption Tabloid Journalism in Africa’, revisiting some of the insights discussed in the book while looking at challenges and success stories comparatively throughout the analysis. He concludes that the book needs to be given weight for engaging scholarly debates in the scarcely explored field of anti-corruption tabloid journalism in Africa. He notes that the goal of his book was to use the continent’s cases to gain a clearer understanding of the evolution of anti-corruption tabloid journalism in Africa and to derive insights into the relationship between the anti-corruption actions of the state and anti-corruption reporting by the tabloids. He recommends the need for Africa’s governments to make freedom of information laws available and legally compel authorities to release information to the general public and provide monitoring mechanisms to track compliance with requests. Brian argues for the need to develop laws able to protect tabloid journalists in practice especially from attacks by politicians and political cadres.