More than 650 senior African media leaders are meeting in Johannesburg to seeks solutions to the challenges faced by the continent's media industry.

Brand South Africa head Thebe Ikalafeng told the Forum that only 30% of the brands Africans most admired were made on the continent, and that in the media realm the top three most admired brands were BBC, CNN and DSTV. This he said underlined a sense that African media needed to create more content that would resonate with their African audiences.

The Founder of Sekunjalo Investments Dr Iqbal Surve commented that to achieve this Africa needed to invest in training more journalists on all platforms. He said: "It is important that Africa is not a recipient of News about itself. That's way I've invested in the African News Agency as it is an example of news generated in Africa".

Thebe Ikalafeng added: "We need to tell stories from an African perspective. Our job is to think local but act global. That means we must stop judging ourselves in Africathrough western eyes".

Both were appearing on the Opening Panel of the African Media Initiative's African Media Leaders Forum which has brought together more than 650 media professionals to discuss how the continent can develop its media industry.

Dr Iqbal concluded: "We need to start celebrating ourselves and to do that we need to start investing in ourselves, research and journalist training"

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