A RADIO STATION, AN INTERVIEW, A BLACKOUT AND THE SPIN
Instead of doing its normal job of reporting on people and events in Sierra Leone, Radio Democracy 98.1 has found itself at the center of some storm recently. The station is still dealing with questions arising from the sudden resignation of their manager and three presenters. The station’s board has been explaining the circumstances and urging people to calm down because, according to them, things were perfectly under control. Just when the dust raised by that issue was beginning to settle, the station was hit by a hurricane Reimer.
The departing US Ambassador David Reimer granted the station an interview in which he did something we are still trying to understand. After understanding him we will then examine what he wanted to achieve with that interview. He may be home in the US by that time but we live in a global village and may still have that little conversation we have asked for in this paper.
We have obtained the full interview done with Ambassador Reimer and asked a few questions around what actually happened at 98.1 and some of the inevitable spin on social media.
THE RADIO STATION
1. The interview that ended up on social media was SIX minutes short against the original interview that was THIRTEEN minutes and some seconds. We have not yet been able to establish who edited the interview further after it had been prepared for broadcast on the day in question ostensibly without the approval of the Acting Station Manager.
2. It is very clear though that the person who edited the original interview that was already in the system waiting to be broadcast had just one motive: to eliminate all other aspects of the material and focus on Ambassador Reimer’s comments on the elections and the MCC grant. The reason for that is also clear. We are Sierra Leoneans.
3. The production process was also in some kind of chaos that morning. There was a loss of overall editorial control because some of the producers had no idea who were the people invited to the popular morning show and that includes the minister of information who turned up by 7am.
There are a few more issues about the station we will not touch on for now except that we wonder why the senior staff of the station went to the State House to apologize for that incident. We understand they were never summoned but they initiated contacts and went to the big house. Why haven't they issued a statement explaining what happened at the station for the benefit of all listeners? If there is an apology to be made, it should include all listeners.
THE BLACKOUT AND THE SPIN
Electricity failure is a part of normal life in Sierra Leone. It affects hospitals, the State House and the presidential lodge. In fact we are now used to radio stations apologizing to listeners many times during the broadcast period when power suddenly goes off.
For some reason people we are familiar with are on social media arguing that the station went off because the minister instructed EDSA to switch the power off to prevent an interview that would embarrass the government from going on air. We find it impossible to believe this for the following reasons:
1. It is easier for the minister to stay at home and trigger the blackout than drive all the way to the station and spend one hour waiting in vain for electricity. In fact in this circumstance the station would call him to cancel or postpone the interview with apologies.
2. In the current media environment why would any minister go to such elaborate length to try to achieve something they know is unachievable? How does cutting off electricity that morning prevent the interview from being broadcast in the afternoon, in the evening or even the next day with several repeats and eventual upload on social media?
3. We believe the minister knows that confronting the issues instead of hoping their opponents would disregard it is always the best thing to do. In modern day politics, it’s always good to have your own narrative out there instead of trying to suppress the narrative being deliberately spun by your opponents.
We will be back on this issue in subsequent editions.
DAVID REIMER AND HIS GOOD GOVERNANCE LECTURE
We understand that several individual journalists and media houses asked the media person at the US embassy for an interview with the departing David Reimer but ended up granting the interview to 98.1 alone.
This is the kind of traditional interview that departing diplomats do and the media would normally ask softball questions on the emotional side of things – the departing diplomat would talk about the local people, our food, and our beaches. There is really no rule preventing journalists from throwing in hot political questions but we know how other diplomats in the past have handled those situations – there was John Hirsch, Joseph Melrose from the USA, both of whom operated during extremely difficult times in this country and the legendary Peter Penfold from the UK. Not once did they attempt to LECTURE the people of this country on how to run things at home.
Our main takeaway points from David Reimer’s lecture is that there are no Sierra Leoneans who are independent or credible enough to conduct an investigation into the election PROCESSES leading to the re-election of Principal in June 2023.
The other point is that the reports from all other observer missions from ECOWAS, EU, MRU and local bodies including the Sierra Leone Bar Association are not important except that done by the EU-funded NEW and the Carter Center.
We can’t really help but see the link between this lecture and the opposition's call for so-called independent foreigners to do everything here, including running our judiciary, taking over ECSL and negotiating political disagreements. Soon we will ask for independent traffic police officers on our streets to make sure traffic flows without bias to one side of the road.
Anyway, we hope Ambassador Reimer will talk to us before leaving Sierra Leone or by means of technology we can still have a chat on ZOOM. We want to respectfully ask Mr. Ambassador to give us a copy of his memoir so we can read the chapter on his two years or so in this country.
SALONE POLICE AND THE KILLING OF ARATA
In Sierra Leone we wouldn’t normally give a damn if an ARATA dies or is killed. Who cares about a dead rat? However the ARATA we are writing about here is not an ordinary ARATA. This was a human ARATA who, according to those in his circles, played a very important role in mobilizing the streets, especially in the west end of Freetown to bring Principal into office in 2018. In the period following that election, ARATA received benefits from the system and he was all over the place, showing off.
The other side of this ARATA is that he became too hot to handle and frequently found himself on the wrong side of the law and had to be bailed out of police stations several times. To cut a long story short, he was increasingly being framed as a man involved in criminal activities on the streets and was eventually shunned by his political allies.
Anyway, for now we are asking the Force for Good to thoroughly and speedily investigate his gruesome and pointless killing and bring those responsible to justice. We will not allow this case to go cold like a few others. We want to see those responsible in the dock. In fact, we are at a loss as to why a police force that enjoys issuing press statements for this and that has still not publicly addressed us on the killing of ARATA.
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