Whenever someone launches a newspaper, anywhere in the world, I smile. The launch of a new title makes me feel warm and good inside because to launch a newspaper the owners must believe that people still do that most beautiful of things: read.To believe that is to believe that people like you and me still exist, still matter. To believe that is also to confess something about yourself: you are an optimist.And so on Friday, when I saw yet another weekly newspaper title launched, I smiled. It's an addition to the multiplicity of voices we need to build a strong, caring, open, diverse and vibrant society.The publishers said their newspaper will "change the narrative of how Africa is reported".I sighed when I read that. I sighed because there is an assumption that journalists are inherently negative and pessimistic about the continent, that they write about the wars and all the other bad things that happen in Africa while ignoring the peace and oceans of good that exist here.It is an argument I hear all the time. I hear it in South Africa and I heard it from a Sudanese diplomat just a week ago.The fact is that it is not words that will change the narrative on Africa. It is action that will change the narrative on Africa. It is when our political leaders, our elites, begin to act in such a manner that there is an overwhelmingly good story to tell on Africa.Think back to the AU summit in South Africa in June. African leader after African leader bent over backwards to protect Sudanese president Omar al- Bashir.Our government trashed its international reputation and defied the Pretoria High Court by illegally sneaking this fugitive from international justice out of our borders.Our leaders broke our own laws to smuggle a man accused of killing 300000 black Africans in his own country.This, therefore, is the nub. The good Africa story is not the politicians in shiny suits protecting al-Bashir in Sandton. It is not the bloated cabinet of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe or the murderous regime of Equatorial Guinea. It is not the kleptocracy of Angola or the mini-me dictator of Burundi. It is not all these fakers and looters who buy houses in Europe while telling journalists back home to write nice articles about them.The good Africa story is the brave journalist in Angola who writes about how the generals intimidate, steal and ensure that they get a cut fromevery deal done in that country.The good Africa story is journalist Bheki Makhubu in Swaziland, standing firm against tyranny.The good story is the judges in South Africa who uphold the independence of the judiciary.That is the good story of Africa. That is why, across the continent, more and more members of civil society organisations are challenging the status quo.The good story is the fact that, whatever the men in shiny suits in Sandton might pronounce, the people of Burundi say that Pierre Nkurunziza will not have an easy time stealing the country for a third term. They challenge him, they harry him, they expose him for the tin-pot dictator that he is.The good news is that he will never rest easy. Everywhere he goes across the globe there will be activists and ordinary Burundians pointing and protesting and laughing at him and exposing him. That is because he stole a country, and we all know it. That is the good news about Africa. That is the narrative that has changed, that we need to write about.People in Tunisia and Kenya and other places are saying enough is enough. They are the people I want to write about, to read about.When Thabo Mbeki and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria travelled the world in the 2000s and talked about an African renaissance, this is the Africa they were talking about. When they talked about stopping the illicit flow of money out of Africa, these are the people they wanted to empower. They were talking about the small man, the small woman, not the men and women in suits in Sandton shouting at the tops of their voices for al-Bashir to go free.The optimists among us, those who launch newspapers, need to realise that this is the real - and the positive story - about Africa. We are no longer subjects of the Big Men.We, the people, hold our destiny in our own hands now...