Last Updated: May 20, 1999
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International journalism
Exchange
The experience was like a good dream
By Ibbo Daddy Abdoulaye
All the dreamers know this state: It takes time to emerge to reality
after wonderful adventures in dreamland. Now that I am back in Niger after
a five-week stay in the United States, in an American newsroom, I am in
the same mood. Like in a dream, the experiences were too abundant, too
sudden and too meaningful.
Coming from a country where the definition of a journalist is still
up for debate, one can but wonder how blessed I was, pressed in the American
media brainstorming process.
As the editor of a sporadic weekly with 3,000 circulation in an environment
where poverty, illiteracy, political pressure and economic recession combine
to shrink newspapers to the level of toilet paper, you can imagine how
humbled and receptive I was to stand before and talk business with newspapermen
running large media conglomerates or profit-seeking organizations like
Gannett Co. Inc.
As a journalist from a country where journalism is more than a priesthood
but not yet a profession, the interactions and exchanges with American
professionals about their jobs, careers, expectations, aspirations, satisfactions
and dissatisfactions helped me to sharpen my views on the social purpose
and highest ideals of journalism rather than any rigid code, book, school
or standards.
My weeks of intensive practice in the American free press were extraordinary.
Through seminars or the newsroom, from people at the bottom to the those
at the top, in the news or business departments, and by talking at the
coffee pot, I have been involved in facets of journalism I never thought
of and capitalized on experiences that will, perhaps, never be of use in
my short journalistic life.
I had the opportunity to be at the right place at the right time and
paid keen interest to how American newspaper employees respond to problems,
critical issues and create an environment for success both for the paper
and the community.
I beat the field with hard-working and dedicated writers and editors
and covered topics as varied as politics, business, crime, education, health,
sports, arts and entertainment. I now understand why American journalists
are so involved with their community and concerned with the promotion of
issues of public interest and the reporting of positive, solution-oriented
stories.
I could go on, but I don’t have enough room to tell my full experience.
As a journalist working under Stone Age press laws, in a country where
politics is a religion and democracy is a line on the horizon, my presence
in the U.S. during the political campaign battles and while “Monicagate”
was storming was the mother of all experiences.
Like the man in Plato’s cavern myth, I now fear one thing: As someone
propelled into the outside world who has seen journalistic reality from
the top of the mountain and in life-size, I have not been able to relay
this reality to my fellow journalists. But this is another story...
Abdoulaye is editor-in-chief of Anfani in Niamey, Niger. He spent
his summer at the the Charleston (W.Va.) Daily Mail.
