Bryant Gumbel may see his dream come true when NBC`s ”Today” embarks Friday on a six-day trip to Africa. The program, based in Zimbabwe, will focus on the people, politics, priorities and problems of the continent.
”It`s something I`ve wanted to do for a long time,” Gumbel said during a phone hookup with reporters.
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Is it a dream come true? ”A lot will depend on how well we do it, and how well it`s received,” he replied. ”Whatever, I think the coverage is extremely warranted.”
Gumbel said the goal of the visit is to correct many misconceptions of Africa.
”We`ve done every other continent,” he pointed out. ”And Africa has been widely underreported. There are many untapped stories there. You don`t see lions roaming the streets, or a jungle in the background. There are skyscrapers and other big-city scenes.”
Asked the reason for the media`s poor coverage of Africa, he said,
”First, there`s the racial aspect. The media tends to minimize it. Then, there`s the economics. It`s not easy to get to, and the African governments are not as helpful as they should be.”
Gumbel said that he was deeply moved by his visit to the Isle de Goree, just off the coast of Senegal, the last bit of Africa most slaves-an estimated 25 million-saw before being shipped to the Americas.
”It was like seeing a concentration camp or a cemetery in Normandy,” he said. ”There was a sense of tragedy-the pure inhumanity of it, especially with my 13-year-old son along.”
On other matters, Gumbel said he has not read the book ”Inside Today,”
saying he couldn`t be ”preoccupied with something that is so blatantly false”; he doesn`t watch the competing morning news programs; and that he and Bill Cosby had a good laugh over Cosby`s interest in buying NBC, but that it would be significant for an African-American to become an owner of a network.