Season’s Greetings to all our avid readers and advertisers! Thanks for standing by us through the difficulties that the COVID-19 pandemic brought forth upon us in 2021. We hope 2022 will be a much better and more progressive year than 2021 has been.
This dying year, like last year, has been a bit challenging but a worthy one for us here at Free Media (the publishers of Politico Newspaper). Advertising was few and far between, sales dropped considerably while production costs increased exponentially with some suppliers using Covid19 as a fig leaf for their price increases and me standing. I was ushered in as the new Editor with a small staff base. We later lost Francis Murray who now works for the judiciary where he is doing pretty well.
However, after advertising for reporters, we were later joined by Mohamed Foday Conteh, Nasatu Kargbo and Saio Marrah who after his internship period last year volunteered with us. Mohamed was assigned to cover the courts, Saio to parliament and Nasratu on the beat.
Towards the end of the year, we were joined by Mohamed Macarthy, our new intern from the Mass Communications Department of FBC.
As we hope to expand our production and reach to cover other areas in Sierra Leone by 2022, we will also be losing another hardworking and committed staff Mohamed Foday Conteh who is leaving us for other opportunities in the business sector. We wish him well in his new adventure. However, we will also be recruiting for more reporters.
We reported on so many issues ranging from development, politics, human rights, health, water and sanitation to infrastructure amongst others. But the one that saddened us the most was the story of the woman who lost her life due to societal neglect. She died after a surgery to remove a pair of forceps/scissors lodged in her abdomen for seven years and was removed by some visiting Italian doctors. With the Ministry of Health and Sanitation doing nothing to hold to account those who did the initial surgery in 2014 that left the implement in her abdomen, or even the medical and dental association calling out one of their own for such fatal neglect. We will not rest in the New Year until someone is held responsible even if not for reasons of prosecution, or apologies.
Please remember to stay safe in all you do as we continue the fight against COVID19, which keeps mutating and wreaking more havoc.
Happy New Year in advance from all of us at Politico. May 2022 be better than 2021 has been.
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