There is an old dictum in many newsrooms especially in developing countries which goes thus: "You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps." As an up and coming journalist you could wonder how this could be so. It is largely in the way things can be chaotic and rowdy in newsrooms to the extent madness can take the best of those working there.
This is where good editors show their prowess – playing the balancing act between madness and level-headedness. The newsroom is not a place to drink coffee all the time even if that helps sometimes; or making endless telephone calls to politicians even if needed at times. A good editor edits the scripts himself or herself.
In journalism, there is something we call a slow news day. It's a nightmare for all journalists because we have a date with an audience that won’t accept excuses. And in a newspaper industry as competitive as the one we have in Freetown, a modicum of tardiness could soon be felt in the bank balance. So a slow news day is the last thing any journalist wants to experience.
The point is, journalists are not clairvoyants – if all the reporters worked for 24 hours nonstop they would still not cover all the newsworthy events of the day. The country is covered from where one can easily find out when human activity departs from the normal hence becomes news. And this is what non-journalists always struggle to come to terms with and question our choice of news.
So the reporter arrives at work after a half hour poda-poda ride and sees nothing unusual on the road – like some leaking sewer on Lightfoot Boston street, policemen dispersing riotous Okada men at Dwarzark junction, a fallen crane at a construction site or Abacha Street without petty traders. At the office, he does what we know as check calls after looking through a blank newsroom diary.
The reporter calls up a police source and is told things were very quiet over night; the cases due in the main criminal courts are not very fresh; the reporter calls the hospital and is told that accident and other emergencies were unusually relaxed throughout the night, there is no big political announcement or a set piece speech by President Koroma; provincial reporters have not pitched stories for the day - a real slow news day is in full swing and this is when every editor like Umaru Fofana is really tested.
At Politico, we have managed to assemble a fine team - young people who have a passion for their country and believe journalism has a mission to change society for the better. They are an integral part of this mad group that produce Politico twice weekly for your delight. Let's meet them.
Isaac Massaquoi
Isaac provides a massive supporting hand to the strict and impenetrable editorial firewall at Politico. His Bottom Line column is a great balance of balance and wit as well as a blend of humour and seriousness – serio-comedy. He shares his time as a journalism lecturer at Fourah Bay College.
Tanu Jalloh
Tanu Jalloh shares the task with Isaac as part of the firewall that is the pride of Politico. The young man does really big things with newspapers and has been in the newspaper business for long and goes to bed thinking about tomorrow's headlines and angles. Thanks to little Tania – his daughter who turns two years later this month – who keeps him awake a lot of the time.
Bampia Bundu
There's a guy called Bampia Bundu. A happy young man who cut his journalistic teeth at Awareness Times newspaper, Bampia is always on the move – today he is in Makeni, the next minute he is covering some political meeting in Koinadugu or the latest promotion by one of the mobile phone companies. In 2014 he had a respectable turnover of stories that proved very useful on a slow news day.
Crispina Cummings:
Crispina Cummings spends her day at Tower Hill covering parliament. We plucked here from behind the microphone at Radio Viascity at Waterloo where she was well established. Crispina has settled in slowly to the rigours of covering parliament. We call her “Honourable Member”. We look forward to giving her a new microphone to play with, in the New Year. And by the way one of the highlights of this year at the office was gracing the ceremony for her changed – Mrs Taylor. So do not be surprised should you see a by-line next year with “Taylor” at the end.
Aminata Phidelia Alie
Fresh from University, Aminata Phidelia Alie had a tentative start with Politico after she had first worked here as an intern. It's almost as if she didn't believe she could make it. She has a very decent pen and is one of the most brilliant female journalists in this country – we put her forward for that in any contest. Phidelia's body language conveys no sense of urgency even in the heat of production. But that does not diminish her effectiveness and efficiency. She can hold her own in any world class newsroom.
Joseph Lamin Kamara
There's the English professor – Joseph Lamin Kamara. For him, like for Umaru Fofana, Krio doesn't exist. Joseph takes his work very seriously. He came to us from the classroom and enjoys running around and bringing in stories. He does not like the kind of stories you find anywhere. She is hard working and digs up stories. He did one which will be published in the new year about the agony of children whose parents given them to unsuspecting slave mistresses.
With a sub-editor like him – as he doubles as such – final editing is a stroll in the park. Joseph has a bright future in Sierra Leone journalism. But we wouldn't be surprised to lose him to the United Nations one day for obvious reasons.
Septimus Senessi
Septimus Senessi, our man in Kono is a fantastic journalist. Very enthusiastic. He turns in two stories at a time. The guy is so thorough that at times he overkills a particular fact in a story with the number of sources he presents – simply too many. But we told him early in his career that all stories have many sides and at Politico we do not take sourcing lightly and we often remind our reporters that “a story without a source is a source for trouble”.. And he remembers that, coupled with his strict adherence to the discipline of verification. Septimus hardly puts the wrong foot forward. He has opened up Kono in an extraordinary way.
Mohamed T Masssaquoi
We bet our everything on our assertion that no journalist has ever covered the district of Pujehun more than Mohamed T. Massaquoi has. The unassuming young man started slowly but today newsmakers in Pujehun know the power of his pen. He has come through threats of legal action and abuses – just the oxygen that keeps journalists alive and in business. His nose is short but it can smell a story from a distance.
Jenneh Brima
Meet our beauty queen Jenneh Brima. (She has actually won actual pageants). Jenneh started her journalism career with Eastern Radio in Kenema. She is getting used to media work on the big stage in Freetown and she is learning fast. She is set to enter university whenever that is possible in our Ebola-ridden nation.
Mohamed Vandi
In Jenneh's hometown of Kenema is Mohamed Vandi – a quiet man who knows where the journalistic bodies are buried in the Eastern region. When he broke the story about a head teacher in Joru who was busy using his pupils to build his home, we told him his story would cause many heads to roll. Sadly no heads rolled. Instead Mohamed was threatened with death but he still has his pen.
Mabinty Kamara
In the far east of Freetown lives our Mabinty Kamara who is a volunteer reporter for Politico. A student in the Mass Communication department at FBC, Mabinty knows her community very well and gets her story in by whatever means – email, whatsapp or SMS. She has only started out now in real practice and she must have realised what journalism is like outside the walls of her classroom. When she went to cover an Ebola food distribution recently and realised the whole thing had descended into chaos she found it a little uncomfortable changing her news angle. But that's journalism – we only report men and things.
Kemoh Sesay
Now meet our sports reporter Kemoh Sesay, certainly not the Minister of Political and Public Affairs. He is very willing to learn, and with Zainab Joaque as her editor, Kemoh has his work cut out. Recently, the umbrella body of sports journalists, SWASAL, passed a resolution that all their members must pretend the SLFA doesn't exist following the deportation of three of their members from Cameroon. They blame the SLFA for not providing them the necessary accreditation.
Kemoh's responsibility is to cover local sports. With all sporting activities banned because of Ebola, what else can Kemoh cover with a job description like that? In Sierra Leone many sport journalists enjoy reporting the frailties of the SLFA. Zainab believes we must implement the SWASAL resolution but remains implacable – the back page of Politico should never be filled with Premiership football. Hello Kemoh!
Apart from organising Kemoh, Zainab organises everybody else at Politico. Her reelection to the office of Organising Secretary at the last SLAJ elective congress was the only predictable one. She's quick and unambiguous.
Emmanuel Thorlie
Let's talk now our newspaper layout man whom everyone who knows him knows him as Alpha Thorley. He is vastly experienced and in demand. His sense of timing is a little faulty but he is a master at his trade. He knows his way around Politico and gets along with little supervision. He has been in the newspaper industry dating back decades.
Alusine Kamara and Abass Turay
Alusine Kamara and Abass Kanu are the guys who move our paper around and spend a lot of time chasing notoriously unsympathetic advertisers who take up to a year to pay for advertising. Unbelievable!
Alusine is quick and witty and for the last year combined his work with media studies at FBC.
Abass is one of the most trustworthy newspaper production managers you will find in this country. He is dutiful, time conscious and dependable.
Christopher Parkinson
There's hardly anything to say about our graphic artist. But I can say that Sunny Boy is still on the road taking the temperature of the nation. Parkinson is the best graphic artist in Mama Salone. Any time you pick up Politico watch out for Sunny Boy.
Our interns
This year we were joined by two interns from the Mass Communication department of Fourah Bay College – Sahid Allieu Tonkara and Mustapha Kamara. We were very lucky to have them. They performed remarkably well and should both have a good portfolio of work going back to college after the Ebola war.
Alimamy Kanu
Alimamy hardly talks. When he does, he is very brief. He keeps our office clean. And in an Ebola time like this, he keeps all surfaces in the office well disinfected. And he replenishes our chlorine bucket.
Umaru Fofana
Our editor Umaru Fofana may combine those attributes of an editor in a mad newsroom situation mentioned in the opening of this editorial suite – except that he does not like tea. That title belongs to Isaac Massaquoi. Umaru prefers water and Vimto to wash down his fish burger. He runs helter-skelter between his office and the newsroom, and has impeccable news contacts which the world depends on. He is furious when reporters miss out on deadlines or fail to balance their stories. Admittedly, he lacks patience for lazy people.
In his little corner he sits. On his shoulders tests ultimate responsibility. He has an eye for detail. All journalists know that newsrooms are not democracies but at Politico, the madness in us manifests itself when editorial decisions are made as the paper goes to bed. We pride ourselves in that being our strength. But, a former colleague once told us, that kind of democracy in a newsroom can also become our weakness. I agree.
Umaru does many things at the same time - responding to quality control questions from Reuters, posting a comment on Facebook and Twitter or popping out quickly to file a piece for the BBC while trying to beat the deadline with Think Tank. Isn't the newsroom a place for crazy people? In fact, a Politico whether it's a slow news day or not, people become mad as soon as they enter the building.
We are moving up by a gear in 2015. We have a lot of friends at home and abroad who've made things possible since we came to the stands. They are not part of the mad bunch but they are satisfied with what we produce on behalf of our people. A very happy and prosperous even if very quiet and uneventful Christmas and New Year holidays. Long live Politico!! Long Live Sierra Leone!
© Politico 18/12/14
