The
Daily Talk is an English-language news medium published daily on a
blackboard on Tubman Boulevard a main thoroughfare in the center of
the Liberian capital Monrovia.
It
is "the most widely read report" in Monrovia, a city where
radios and televisions are luxuries most people cannot afford, and so
many Monrovians lack the access to the conventional mass media.
The
founder, managing editor and sole employee of the Daily Talk is
Alfred J. Sirleaf, who founded his blackboard newspaper in 2000, in
the middle of Liberia’s fourteen-year-long civil war, because of
his belief that a well-informed citizenry is the key to the rebirth
of Liberia after years of civil war. In post-war Liberia, Sirleaf
sees access to information as the key to peace. He compiles his
stories daily from newspaper reports and messages from volunteer
correspondents. The Daily Talk is free to read and is funded by
occasional gifts of cash and pre-paid cellphone cards. It even has
its own suggestion box for readers and followers.
Once
he has decided what he wants to post, he goes into a little shack he
calls the “newsroom” and writes neatly on the blackboards, a
meticulous process that can take a couple of hours. To reach those
who cannot read, Sirleaf has devised a series of pictures and objects
to symbolize the news, including a blue helmet for the UN and its
peacekeeping force, a white handkerchief for Obama, and a hubcap for
President Sirleaf, known as the Iron Lady of politics. In place of
photographs he uses old campaign posters and other free handouts.
During
the rule of Charles Taylor it was destroyed by government soldiers
after The Daily Talk published criticism of the Taylor regime, and
Sirleaf was briefly jailed, and he finally fled into "exile"
in Ghana. When peace returned he arrived back and with help from his
fellow Monrovians, Sirleaf rebuilt it a week before the 2005 election
of president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (not a close relation) and resumed
publication of the Daily Talk.
Today
it is one of the most read News Sources in the capital with thousands
everyday taking the time to stop as they walk or drive by to get the
breaking news.
Posted in: 
0 commenti:
Posta un commento