Journalists in developing countries: What is IFAJ's role?

By Mike Wilson 

Many of us who were able to make it to the 2010 IFAJ congress in Belgium had the privilege of getting to know colleagues from developing countries in Africa and South America. These journalists were part of a unique inspiration on the part of our Belgium colleagues to bring together journalists from the north and south and share views on our profession. 
            These "Master Class" journalists took part in a three-day workshop and the full Congress, where we exchanged ideas and concerns, the same kind of networking you would find at any IFAJ event. 
            The experience of meeting with these journalists had a profound impact on all of us. 
            I had a chance to meet with a couple of these colleagues. Jean Baptiste Lubamba Lutoko is director of "La Voix du Paysan Congolais," a newspaper in the Democratic Republic of Congo; Jean Baptiste Musabyimana is an agricultural journalist of the 'Fédération des Organisations des Producteurs Agricoles du Congo' (FOPAC). Both have college degrees in broadcast and communications. Both have jobs similar to my own, as I learned in a brief interview after the Belgium Congress. Their mission is to communicate with farm audiences. 
            The difference is, they are doing their jobs under miserable economic conditions. 
            Congo is a land ravaged by civil war and sickening poverty. If you ever whined to your boss about needing a new laptop, well, consider what a luxury such a thing might be for guys like Lutoko and Musabyimana. 
            "Equipment is a problem," says Musabyimana. "There's no money to buy the things we need, which is internet, computers, phones and means of transport to get the job done."            

Inventive journalists
What I learned from my chat with "the two Jeans" is how inventive you may need to be to get the job done. Sometimes they use cell phones for still shots and video. They often wait to interview farmers at major farm meetings, since it's difficult to travel to farms. 
            "It's difficult to finance trips to interview farmers," says Lutoko. "We usually combine them with other events, like if we have to give a speech somewhere.
            "Here you have a budget and go to farms to do interviews," he adds. "It doesn't happen that way in the Congo." 
            Most Congo farmers live on $1 a day. They work by hand and live on what they make; if they're lucky, there's some leftover for an actual income. That economic equation makes it difficult to keep a commercial newspaper in business, says Lutoko, whose paper has a circulation of around 2,000. But his paper a big impact on readers –maybe more than in the developed world. Farmers are hungry for information they can use to improve their businesses, and they respond positively to publications they believe are unbiased. That attitude develops, in part, because of the lack of free press in countries like Congo.
            "When a farm magazine publishes something in Congo, it has an impact," says Musabyimana. "When a farm organization is behind something it has even more credibility than if an individual reporter had written something."            

IFAJ role
IFAJ has put together a temporary committee to explore what the organization's role should be in relation to journalists from countries like the Congo. Headed by Vice President Markus Rediger, it includes Hans Siemes of The Netherlands, Lena Johannson of Sweden, Dana Vecerova of the Czech Republic, and Katharina Seuser of Germany.
The committee will explore what kind of organization IFAJ wants to become, and how (or if) IFAJ can transition to become a more global organization. The committee will set a goal to have its concluding report by the Berlin 2011 business meeting. 
            I'm looking forward to learning the results of this committee. I can tell you that the IFAJ plans to have more Master Class experiences at future Congresses, where journalists from developing countries can network and share knowledge with colleagues from around the world. Our next Congress will be in September 2011 in Ontario, Canada (see www.IFAJ.org for details).
            The Master Class experience at the Belgian Congress was a great wake up call for many of us. If nothing else, it revealed that that there are a lot of folks out in the world trying to work as agricultural journalists, who don't have the resources to do the job well. That's a situation that should be addressed, with or without IFAJ's help.