For Immediate Release

December 19th, 2023

Archive of iconic Kenyan journalist Hilary Ng’weno is now live on Africa Commons, documenting the role of journalism in turbulent times.

Coherent Digital today announced that The Hilary Ng’weno Archive is now live on its Africa Commons platform. Customers and trialists may access the content immediately.

Ng’weno, the iconic Kenyan journalist, publisher, commentator, and public figure, is recognized for a fifty-year career that helped shape modern Kenya. He’s known for holding people in power to their word through his magazines, newspapers, television programs, and documentaries. He created and managed The Nairobi Times, the only Kenyan newspaper to report the 1982 attempted coup the next morning; The Weekly Review, which ran for twenty-four years; Rainbow, a children’s magazine; other print publications; and hundreds of hours of films and documentaries, including the Kenya Heritage Series—all of which are now available online exclusively through Africa Commons.

“These newspapers and magazines came at a time that really is hard to imagine today,” explains Dr. Bettina Ng’weno, assistant professor at UC Davis and Hilary Ng’weno’s daughter. “News was expensive and scarce. Very little of it came from Africa, very little of it spoke to issues from Africa, and very little looked at the world from an African’s perspective.”

Ng’weno’s archive gives scholars a fifty-year visual history of Kenya’s political and social postcolonial journey. Ng’weno “expanded the journalistic—and therefore the democratic—space in Kenya” (The Guardian).

In 2014, Moi University obtained the archive. But the Ng’weno family was “...quite worried about its maintenance and access for students to be able to use,” said Dr. Bettina Ng’weno in an exclusive video interview just posted to Coherent’s website. She cites the fragility of the materials and the funding challenge for ongoing maintenance. A chance meeting with Coherent’s Africa Commons editor led to a three-way collaboration among Coherent Digital, Moi University, and Digital Divide Data.

Coherent Digital makes The Hilary Ng’weno Archive free to all libraries within Africa and to all 107 HBCUs. The project is sustained through purchases and subscriptions from other universities. Coherent will give twenty percent of sales revenues back to Moi University through the Ng’weno family, to help maintain the archive.

The video interview includes footage of Hilary Ng’weno himself speaking about the archive, which he says will help researchers “understand the impact the media has had and can have on the African continent as a whole.”

Elizabeth Robey, editor of Africa Commons, expanded on the Ng’weno archive’s value to scholars: “Hilary Ng’weno is a legend in both print and broadcast journalism. Students and researchers will find here his personal observations and commentaries on a range of people—not just politicians, but artists, sportsmen, scientists, and others who formed Kenya’s legacy and contributed to building postcolonial Kenya. Beyond its value for historians,” she explains, “the project will give students in media studies a deep understanding of the man who was considered one of the most outstanding journalists of his time.”

For a free trial, please contact Elizabeth Robey.

About Coherent Digital LLC

Africa Commons is a collaborative project with multiple partners in Africa to preserve and disseminate Africa’s endangered cultural heritage. Coherent Digital is a technology solutions provider that specializes in digital archiving, preservation, and access. The company is committed to helping organizations digitize and preserve their valuable historical and cultural assets, making them easily accessible for research and exploration. For more information about the project, and to request a free trial, please visit https://africacommons.net and https://coherentdigital.net.