May 20, 2012

peter dörrie

| journalist |

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Mali’s Tuareg Rebellion Puts Region at Risk


Northern Mali, like the whole Sahel region, is currently descending into a hunger crisis, and continued fighting could push the region into a vicious cycle of famine and conflict.

Africa Round Up


A regular round-up on developments in African conflict zones, published over at WarIsBoring.com. Find the latest edition here.

Ein unmoralisches Angebot?


An older article on microcredit lending which was published in the print edition of the German weekly "der Freitag", reposted for your convenience here.

I asked you about ethics and freelancing earlier, wanting to know if you think that consulting and freelance journalism are compatible. The answer was resounding “no” – not only of those of you who reacted on my blog post, but also of those familiar with the NGO and media business I spoke to offline.

photo by Flickr user besfo, CC by-nc-nd

Some people agreed with me that the barriers between publishing and consulting actually do not make a lot of sense, because you can’t be objective, even if you never receive money from the NGO you are reporting on. But everybody agreed that the harsh reality of publishing dictates that journalists who run a consulting  sidebusiness are looked down upon by editors and that NGOs do not hire people who report critically on their operations. All very disillusioning.

So I will have to reassess my original plan on how to earn money as a freelancer. The options: concentrate either on journalism or on communications consulting.

After a prolonged phase of procrastination, I have decided to continue trying my hand at journalism. In the end, my desire to tell stories that I think are important kind of trumped the allure of teaching people how to communicate their organisation’s message (though I still think that this is important and interesting). Also, I am by now quite sure that I will be able to actually sell some articles (like this one about Senegal).

Nonetheless, my big concern remains money; I know that I won’t be needing much, but I will also probably not earn much by almost any standart, even if I “make it” as a journalist. For now this may be ok, as Burkina Faso is not the most expensive country around, but at some point my girlfriend will probably want that I chip in for the holiday fund as well.

Luckily, I had a great business idea, which is compatible with (or even supportive of) my profession as a freelance journalist. I’m currently still at step one (1. random business idea, 2. ???, 3. Profit), so I can’t go into much detail, but I will let you know about further developments. If you like it or not ;-)

Are you a freelance journalist/consultant? How has the whole earning-your-own-money thing worked out for you?

Interview

Photo from Flickr user magnusfranklin, CC-BY-NC

I had an interesting conversation with a press relations guy and former journalist today. He currently works for the German branch of a large INGO, with which I did an internship a while back. I told him of my plans to become a freelance journalist and communications consultant and his immediate reaction was: “You can do either one, but you can’t do both.”

The essence of his argument was that working for two masters (writing articles about NGOs for newspapers and teaching workshops in social media for some of the same NGOs for example) would jeopardize my independence. I would end up being disliked by the aid community, because writing about them implies criticizing their work at some point, and being eyed suspiciously by the media community, because they could not be sure if I deliver honest reports.

This got me thinking. So far I assumed that this would not be a problem, if I handel professional relationships transparently. I know many bloggers and have heard of many journalists who do consulting work. I still trust these people to deliver critical work and I also took it for granted that most consulting clients can take public criticism (if it is fair) with at least a basic level of decency.

My question to you: Am I wrong? Will I risk stepping on many toes by working as a journalist and communications consultant simultaneously?

My current opinion – that critical journalism and consulting work are not always a contradiction – is based on the following arguments:

We are not objective anyway

To loose ones independence one has to have it in the first place. While I know that there is a strong believe in journalisms circles that “objective” coverage is possible, I believe strongly that it is not. What we see, feel and write is always filtered by our experiences. So instead of trying in vain to guard ones mental independence, media professionals should probably be always self-critical about their allegiances and prejudices. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not bad per se to have these, it’s just bad if you assume that you don’t.

Criticism and support are no contradiction

The best people to work with are those that give you an honest feedback of your work – that is at least my opinion. The best way to improve development practice is to criticize it (fairly) and the more people do this (stakeholders, aid professionals, politicians and yes, journalists) the better. If this criticism happens over a beer or in a newspaper is in my view not really important, as long as the critique is well founded and put into context.

It is important that we understand each other

Journalists and aid professionals do not necessarily speak the same language. They have different experiences and hence (see above) see the world differently. While that is not bad in itself, it opens up the possibility of ugly misunderstandings that serve neither the people both parties want to help, nor the reader who wants to understand. Hence we need to foster an understanding, teach each tribe the rituals and traditions of the other. For that you need a certain overlap between the worlds.

It’s the money, stupid

In a perfect world this last argument wouldn’t be one, but as we all know, this world is not perfect. The fact is that living from journalism alone – let alone from reporting on such far-away places like Burkina Faso – is probably not possible. This is deplorable, but for now the stark reality. So how should we react to this? Just stop reporting? Hardly a good solution.

Do you think these arguments hold tight? What’s you opinion on this topic?

Ouagadougou - Burkina Faso

Ouagadougou. Photo by Rita Willaert on Flickr, CC BY-NC

In my previous post I explained what I exactly plan to do in Burkina, once I’m there. That leaves the little question of why I chose Burkina Faso in the first place. I will be honest: the main reason for choosing Burkina over, say, Ghana, was that my girlfriend got a job in Ouagadougou (the capital of Burkina). That alone made my decision quite easy, but it is certainly not the only argument for choosing Burkina as your base for starting out as a freelancer.

First the more rational arguments: Burkina is not a highly contested market for freelance journalists. Senegal, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire (the obvious choices in the region) have lots of resident journalists – both international and local types – that have staked their claim and are well established. But try find a well researched and written story on Burkina on any of the major news sites and you are likely to have to go back several months in the archives. This is not due to a lack of stories though. I will probably write a post lining out potential stories later, but suffice to say that Burkina has enough stories to keep a journalist busy for a lifetime.

Burkina Faso is also a quite stable and secure country, which makes arriving there without a huge support network easier than for example in Côte d’ivoire. I am also looking forward to living in Burkina because everybody I talked to so far went to great lengths telling me how wonderful and friendly the Burkinabé are. Also, my Bradt travel guide tells me that the food in Ouaga is really good.

On the consulting site of things, it is important for me to know that there is a fair number of NGOs and governmental aid organisations working in Burkina, who could be potential customers. Germany has a strong presence in the country (in comparison to its size) and this is obviously a target group which I hope to have a good connection to. But there is also Oxfam, Plan and others.

Now to the more idealistic reasons. Burkina is – I alluded to it earlier – totally neglected by the international media even by (West) African standarts. If even the BBC published only three stories about Burkina in the last six months, something is clearly going wrong. I’m not saying that I can change the lacking awareness of African affairs in western societies on my own, but I can certainly do my part.

I furthermore think that the reverse is also true: people and those with a story to tell from Burkina are probably putting little energy into communicating these stories to a non-French speaking audience*. While the reason for this is clear and understandable, it is nonetheless sad. Communication is a two sided thing. Both sides have to show an interest and have to be willing to be willing to accept the other side on its terms. If this doesn’t happen, both sides loose.

Let me know if I have forgotten any great reasons for going to Burkina. Or have you made different experiences and think that I should reevaluate my decision?

*I have to stress that this is pure speculation.

Boba Fett Was A Freelancer

Picture by Flickr user laughingsquid under CC by-nc-nd

In March, I will move to Burkina Faso, to work as a freelance journalist and communications consultant. I will go into more detail on why Burkina in another post and will focus here on what am I going to do exactly and how do I plan to make it work. The point of documenting this here is of course to get my plans ripped apart by you, so that I can make better ones!

What?

I want to do two things: bring interesting stories about development, politics and conflict in Africa to a global audience to make them care and to help others do the same with their own stories. Oh, and I want to be able to pay my bills by doing that.

To accomplish this goal, I will set myself up in Burkina Faso (in Ouagadougou to be exact). While Burkina has been a very stable country over the last years, it remains to be one of the poorest in the world. It is also situated in the heart of a region (West Africa) that has every complex problem on offer that one could think of: from environmental degradation over internal conflict to questionable governments.

At the same time, it is also a very energetic environment that some people see likely to have an Arab Spring style wave of democratic protest ahead of it. Also, like everywhere where there a great challenges, there is a lot of interesting and creative local problem-solving going on.

There are two ways which I can take to help bringing these stories to the rest of the world: I can write them down and disseminate them myself, or can help others do so effectively. I see these ways not as competing with one another, but as complementary, which brings me to the next point:

How?

First some ramblings about my journalism plans: I have little formal education in the field of journalism, but I think I outweigh this by having a solid education in and first hand experience (for my age, anyway) with the topics I intend to concentrate on: development, security and politics in Africa. I know that it is hard to make a living from journalism under the best of circumstances and that mine are probably not the best, so I don’t expect it to be a money machine. To make my work as a freelance journalist sustainable nonetheless, I intend to do the following*:

  • Build up contacts with editors/fellow journalists while I am still in Germany
  • Bring my French up to an acceptable standart before I arrive in the country (very few people in Burkina speak English)
  • Go beyond the big brand papers for pitching my stories – I want to try especially pitching stories to development-focused publications, as this is where much of my credentials are
  • Use this blog and social media to distribute interesting stories on a daily basis, so that my name is out there

Much of my work will probably be in text with the occasional photo (as this is what I will be able to sell), but I want to make sure that I utilise video and voice as well, as I see these as incredibly effective for creating engaging stories that listeners/viewers will care about. Also, I think that multi-media content will become only more important, so spending time on increasing my media production skills is a valuable investment for me.

I will complement this part of my freelance existence with working as a communications consultant for local and international NGOs (and maybe companies). These often do incredibly important work in very complex environments and often face challenges when trying to communicate with their donors. Many of these organisations are increasingly warming up to the idea that external (and internal) communications management is an important part of being successful at what they do. Consulting for these clients could take the form of producing content, supporting them in managing their communications, or designing homepages, social media profiles and so on.

Again, I don’t expect this to bring in much money at the beginning. But I hope that I will be able to break even relatively fast, so that I won’t be a drain on the pockets of others. My main reason for this hope are not my income expectations though, but the very limited budget I intent to adhere to ;-)

Please let me know what you think of these plans. Are they realistic/crap? Do you have any valuable tips from your own experience at going freelance?

* I am indebted especially to Jina Moore and  Graham Holiday for sharing their infinitely greater experience in the trade of journalism with me.

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