I always find it comical when I talk to people who say they’ve been to Sierra Leone before. I hear it all the time from UN personnel, certain IMATT soldiers, and countless NGO workers. “I love the beaches! What do you like most about Freetown Rob?” “Having my back to it as I travel up line,” I always say.
Now please don’t misinterpret my comments as though I have an ingrained hatred for the capital city: such is not the case. I would be lying if I said I don’t find the peninsula’s beaches the most stunning piece of natural coastline I’ve seen in my entire life. That being said, Sierra Leone is about a lot more than sun and sand. This land encompasses troubled history, rich culture, natural geographical beauty, punishing socio-economic hardship and, in many aspects, endless potential. As an international journalist living in the heart of Sierra Leone’s eastern province, it’s my job to capture those elements and present them to a global audience; a formidable task to say the least.
Freetown is a bubble. While it is true that much of the expatriate community based there has little knowledge of the provinces, many Sierra Leoneans, born and raised in Freetown, aren’t much wiser with regard to what life is like beyond Waterloo.
I’ve been living in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone for more than a year now, and I can honestly say that I wouldn’t trade my experiences in Kenema, Kailahun, and Kono for the world. While it has been physically and emotionally draining at times, it has also been overwhelmingly positive and immensely rewarding. Nevertheless, it is a constant battle to get people in Freetown to care about what’s happening up-country, let alone get people in the West to care about what’s happening in Africa as a whole.
I first arrived in Sierra Leone soil on July 2006. I had taken a job as a journalism trainer with a new Canadian based NGO called Journalists for Human Rights (JHR). I looked at the position as a dual opportunity: I could help build the capacity of local reporters who, by all accounts, were working for an industry that was, and in many ways still is, in a sad state of affairs. But I also viewed the job as a chance to get my feet on the ground in a foreign country and start building a story portfolio that I hoped would vault me onto the same stage of international reporters whose work I have always followed attentively.
I had assumed, incorrectly, that there would be a core of foreign correspondents based in Freetown. Upon arrival, it became clear that most were freelancers just like me. In the provinces, I was and still am completely, totally, and utterly alone as an international journalist.
Before coming to Sierra Leone I had been fortunate enough to talk my way into an on-the-spot interview with the foreign editor of the Sunday Times newspaper in London. The man said he didn’t have a reporter in West Africa and would love if I could file stories for the Times. When I left his office I couldn’t have been happier. When I filed my first story I couldn’t have been more disappointed.
The first story I filed was one which I broke: the arrest, escape, and subsequent recapture of delinquent RSLAF soldier Private Abdul Sesay. While the outlets in Freetown may be unaware of Eastern Radio in Kemema, where I am currently training reporters, it was the first media outlet in the entire country to break the news.
I thought that because Britain had a long running connection to Sierra Leone, the Sunday Times would surely want the story. The heated email reply that I received was something to the effect of “don’t send me anything like this when I’m racing for deadlines!” Apparently it was naïve of me to think that a country that had committed such a significant troop force during the war would care about a possible military coup in the works, as was the allegation being circulated at the time. I quickly came to the realization that getting African stories airtime or page space would be a long and hard fought battle. I decided to try and find new publications that would take longer format features. I pitched a story to CNN Traveller magazine about the untapped potential for tourism. I was blessed with a five page spread that included pictures and praise from the editor.
Editors don’t really want to publish what I refer to as the Big Three: war, poverty, and famine. They want human interest stories with an optimistic, not pessimistic, focus.
Let me be the first to say that most people in the West have an out-of-sight, out-of-mind mentality when it comes to African issues. When they sit down at night in their spacious homes to indulge in their lavish lifestyle, they do not necessarily want to acknowledge that what’s outside their surreal existence can be a depressing and poverty stricken world. Moreover, they don’t really think of Africa as a continent with over 50 countries; they think of it as one giant country. Most Westerners have no comprehension that the individual in Sierra Leone may have little in common with the individual in Malawi, thus resulting in it being difficult to find local issues that are relevant to international editors.
Sometimes a reporter may even find a major international story, only to be sidelined by a newsroom suffering from tunnel vision fixation on the Middle East. A glowing beacon that exemplifies this was my experience covering the most recent crisis in Guinea.
The West African country had been crippled by a general strike for several weeks and although Guinea had been on the brink of disaster for a lengthy period of time, it was obvious that a total collapse was near, and many analysts and pundits forwarded the opinion that the country was quickly spiralling out of control, edging closer towards civil conflict. I had been following the situation closely and the death toll was rising fast. I contacted the World Food Program’s air operations department as journalists can fly for free on that service. However, I was notified that all WFP flights, as well as all private and charter flights, had been suspended indefinitely because of the strike and violent protests that accompanied it. I hired a private vehicle and decided to go in by land through Kambia district. Before I crossed, I notified the Sunday Times that I would be crossing into Guinea to cover the crisis. Much to my dismay the reply I received was not an endorsement of my plan. Instead I was asked what I deemed an unacceptable question; “I’m afraid I don’t know what the story is. We have a lot to cover in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel today. What’s happening in Guinea?” the editor asked me. I was so disappointed that a foreign editor at one of the world’s leading papers was not even aware of the crisis, which had been going on for weeks. I was now faced with a major decision. I had no guarantee that the Times would purchase a story and it would cost a significant amount of money to get into the country by land; therefore, it was a distinct possibility that my trip would turn into an expensive vacation involving getting shot at. Still, not going in was never an option for me.
I turned my attention from print to TV and decided to take my small video camera, US dollars, numerous five gallon drums filled with extra petrol and a half bag of rice as I knew there would be mass food and fuel shortages. We headed for the border. January 23rd was one of, if not the single, bloodiest day in Guinea’s history. Hundreds of thousands of civilians marched towards the Presidential Palace demanding septuagenarian President Lansana Conte step down. But when they arrived, at what was a true urban battlefront, the country’s infamous security forces opened fire on the unarmed crowd, cutting through the protesters like a hot knife through butter. The protesters clashed with police and soldiers for hours until the security forces started to advance forward into the crowd, killing and torturing with impunity. Men were slaughtered and women were raped by either soldiers or civilians wearing military uniforms. The chaos continued into the night. I continued to carefully film in secret. Finally the streets were completely void of any life or movement; everyone had either been killed or fled indoors.
We made our way through the dark eerie streets back to the guesthouse. During the one hour that we walked back on foot, Conakry seemed to have a felling of emptiness so strong it was as though one could be swallowed whole and erased from existence.
Although I was completely exhausted, I barely slept at all that night. I spent most of the night pouring over my footage. The next morning the situation had changed from civilians protesting against the government to overall banditry. I wanted to get the recordings out of the country as soon as possible but when we attempted to leave Conakry, makeshift roadblocks manned by armed youths had sprung up all over the city. Our vehicle got caught in one such roadblock and although the jeep itself was severely damaged, we were not. I can honestly say we were lucky to escape with our lives. The occupants of another vehicle in front of us at the same roadblock were not so lucky. Their car was vandalized after the people inside were shot and set on fire. I also saw the remains of a soldier who had been caught by the angry mob of youths. They had put a tire around him, doused it in petrol and burned him alive.
We were trapped in Conakry indefinitely. However, I had befriended a teenage boy who will remain nameless to ensure his protection. The boy told me that all of the youths would be vacating their roadblocks at 3:00pm the next day and stressed the fact that if I wanted to get out of the city, it would likely be my only chance. I knew that he and his friends had been stationed at one of the quickly thrown-together barricades that mostly resembled piles of burning tires and vehicle carcasses, so I believed what he said to be true. My belief was well founded. The next day, there was heavy gunfire until approximately 2:45 pm, and then, as if someone had given the command to ceasefire, the shooting stopped. We raced out of Conakry and made our way across the border and back into Sierra Leone.
I headed for Freetown and tracked down a contact at Reuters Television. Reuters bought the footage and distributed it worldwide. The Times didn’t even respond to the email I sent detailing what I had experienced, giving credence to the notion that the Western media doesn’t really want to cover the plight of Africa. I believe the only reason Reuters bought the footage is because it was so dramatic that it couldn’t afford not to. I guess there is some validity to the old but paradoxically current journalistic saying “if it bleeds it leads”.
When I was in Guinea, I did not see a single so-called foreign correspondent. Even when I listened to the reports on BBC radio, the focus of the story was where the negotiations stood between government and the unions. In my own opinion, not one of the major network’s foreign correspondents had been on the streets that day for more than a few minutes. I was completely alone.
There are a few reasons why permanently-based foreign correspondents are declining to cover so many African issues. Number one: money matters. Networks are shutting down bureaus like they are going out of style. While radio has predominantly always been a one man show, television and print have not. Newspapers used to send a reporter and photographer to various locations together, but now reporters snaps their own pictures. In television, many foreign bureaus are now staffed with what’s called a videographer, a fancy name for someone who is doing the job of a producer, reporter, camera operator, and editor. In essence, most TV networks have found a way to cut costs by getting one person to do the job of three or four people.
That notwithstanding, many foreign postings have dried up altogether. This is why, more often than not, viewers see analysts from a leading University or Think Tank talking about a crisis situation in a place they are not actually located. First-hand accounts are becoming rarer by the day. There are also huge liability concerns for networks. They do not want to have one of their full-time staffers abducted or killed because its bad press.
While Sierra Leonean journalists may interpret the above-mentioned examples as devastatingly negative, there is a bright side. A decrease in jobs for expatriate reporters in foreign lands can be translated into an increase in job opportunities for local reporters. International editors need them, and their invaluable insights into what's happening in their own country and why it matters to the outside world.
As they grind away in their various newsrooms, talented and driven young journalists from not just Sierra Leone, but all over Africa and beyond, continue to dream of their ideal job: a foreign correspondent posting with never-ending resources. Those same up and comers must also believe that there’s gold at the end of the rainbow if they wade through the fog of journalistic mediocrity that, one could argue, is blanketing the craft.
Foreign correspondents are a dying breed. A new class of foreign correspondents is being born; and in an ironic twist that international family has a distinctly local flavour. By all indicators, the face of international news is changing rapidly. But if Sierra Leone’s journalists keep their wits about them, maintain a strong work ethic, and keep credibility paramount to all else, then they can make that rapidly changing industry work for them, as opposed to working for it.
Robert Mckee is a Canadian journalist based in Kenema. He is a volunteer journalism trainer for the Toronto-based Canadian Journalists for Human Rights (CJHR)
Share this
Twitter
Myspace
Digg
Del.icio.us
Yahoo
Technorati
Newsvine
Googlize this
Blinklist
Wikio
Export PDF
Print