Patience is a Virtue

When I was at the CBC, working for a weekly current affairs program in Toronto, Canada, things were done relatively quickly, although not as a quickly as a daily show. I mean yes there were slow points but when the show was getting ready for air we moved fast. Organized stories, chased guests. And when I worked at The London Free Press, a daily newspaper in southwestern Ontario the paper also worked at a super fast pace. When I would cover Friday night soccer I would have to complete a story in about 30 minutes. The game would finish at 11, and deadline was at 11:30. Keep in mind traveling back to the newsroom also took time, so then I would have 15 minutes. Assignments and stories were planned out the day before, although pitching stories were always welcome.

Here in Malawi… things move slower.

In Canada, when you’re working for a news agency the internet is a necessity. Media organizations rely heavily on the internet, which is used to find stories via weblogs, independent news sites, on-line magazines, on-line newspapers, podcasts etc…We use the internet to fact check information on stories using reliable websites, find contacts and search for sources. We use email to usually connect to sources as a result of the rise in blackberry use. Sources are always reachable whether they are in British Colombia or Los Angelas . And building up your Rolodex depends on people keeping their cellphone numbers and land line numbers the same. My family has kept the same number for years.

But here in Malawi, most stories come about through observation, word of mouth or tips, not necessarily from something I read. That’s not to say that journalism in North America doesn’t rely on word of mouth or tips…the really good stories come from tips but in terms of the daily news cycle it’s often about reading a story and finding another angle to chase. In Malawi, the internet is often too slow to hunt for stories or verify facts. I can barely load the BBC site, and loading The Globe and Mail newspaper, Newsweek or the New York Times…ah forget it…it could take you all day to load the page. And the daily newspaper sites in Malawi are rarely up to date.

Here, things linger. Things take time. The day moves slowly and developing a story takes time, especially when you don’t speak the local language...it takes twice as long for me to interview subjects. Often they can’t understand me and I can’t understand them…because our English is very different. Often in the middle of an interview I will pass the phone to one of my colleagues to ask them to speak to the subject in Chichewa or in their form of English so that I can stop wasting the phone card minutes.
For a journalist in Malawi, getting the story is much more difficult because resources are scarce. Using a land line can only happen with a phone card, so dialing out is often cumbersome. Using your cell phone to speak to a source while you’re on the road would cost a lot of money. It costs almost $1 to make a call on your phone, and units are expensive. For 500 units its 700MK or 5$USD. But the minutes don’t last very long at all. Often what people will do if they want to save minutes is flash you. That means they will call and hang up. When you call someone and hang up you don’t lose airtime. So the person is forced to call you back and you get charged for the minutes.

Often phone numbers don’t work, cell phones are regularly not working because either the network is busy or the person has changed their number. The Africa yellow pages for Malawi never has up to date numbers. And if you’re thinking about leaving a voice mail to get a source to call you back…good luck with that since there isn’t voice mail. And trying to leave a message with a receptionist…ha, the person you’re trying to reach will never ever get your message nor will they bother to call you back if they do.

Also getting to the scene of an accident or going directly to the subject of a specific story is downright impossible. There are only two cars for the newsroom and often times there will be only one car available which is shared between the newsroom, the sales department and the other programs that air on the radio. As well, reporters in the newsroom share one recorder. Thank goodness I brought my own recording equipment because freelancing stories would have been impossible.

As a journalist working in Africa, I have to remind myself daily that 'patience is a virtue.' If I don’t I will want to tear my hair out. One reporter in the newsroom I am working in gave me the best advice about a week ago as I sat at my desk trying to reach one person on the phone for a simple comment the whole day. I never did get a hold of the person until a few days later.

My co-worker said to me, “Amanda…often things move very slow here…Just be patient.”

And I think his words are the best advice I could have received in my nearly three weeks of being in the country. I’m used to the fast paced newsroom, the anger that comes with producers who need guests on air ASAP as they fear another media outlet might break the story before them. But here in Malawi, you get the sense that if the story doesn’t work out today then it doesn’t matter because they’ll just pick up where they left off the next day…In Malawi tomorrow is another day and the story can always wait till tomorrow.