Oh, my God!
I got today this incredible picture from Liberia with this lead in a Lydia Polgreen´s dispatch for The New York Times:
Alfred Sirleaf, the 33-year-old managing editor of The Daily Talk, a white plywood shed trumpeting the latest headlines along Tubman Boulevard, one of the capital’s main thoroughfares.
”Those who don’t have opportunity to buy newspaper, go on the Internet, who can’t afford to buy generator to buy TV,” he said, describing just about everyone in this battered city, ”I do all the dirty work for them, and I just give them exactly what they want.”
Mr. Sirleaf is something of an information evangelist, fervent in his belief that a well-informed citizenry is the key to the rebirth of his homeland, ravaged by 14 years of civil war. As the nation slowly comes back from the brink of annihilation, he said, he wants to make sure every Liberian can keep up with the news and play a part in the country’s young democratic government.
For those who can read, Mr. Sirleaf writes up his succinct reports on the panels of his blackboard in a meticulous hand.
”I try to write it really clear and simple so people can read it far away, even if they are driving by,” he explained.
An amazing newsroom from an amazing newspaper.
This is, my friends, 100% pure journalism.
It remembers me my first visit to Los Andes in Mendoza (Argentina).
Her publisher, Elvira Calle, told me then two great stories.
The paper used to have a strong siren in the top of his tallest tower.
It was used only on very exceptional occasions: II World Ward ends, Evita Peron dies, Argentina wins the soccer world cup, etc.
The siren of Los Andes was a social institution.
You heard its loud sound and you knew that something big was happening.
But a few years ago, during the last military regime, Los Andes was told to disconnect the alarm, and the city lost its voice.
If I were the publisher of Los Andes, now owned by Clarin, La Nacion and Vocento, I will reconnect the siren.
But Los Andes had another great newsroom tradition.
And it was many years before Internet and the online news services.
If you were passing by the Los Andes offices, you will stop to read the latest breaking-news that were updated outside by hand in two big backboards.
I took pictures of those news panels but unfortunately I don´t have them with me right now.
But I will be really happy to post any pictures of the Los Andes old siren and blackboards if anybody from Argentina reads this blog and is able to get the pictures.
The “Real Newsrooms” collection will be very much improved.
Like it is, and I am sure that you will agree with me, with this fabulous image from this tremendous newsroom in Monrovia (Liberia)
Picture: Candace Feit
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