Fostering Nat'l Dialogue Through Journalism

 

I am Fatoumata Nabie Fofana, a practicing Liberian journalist and a 2009 alumnus of the Rotary Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, situated within the Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. My country, Liberia – situated along the West coast of Africa –  is recovering from 14 years of devastating civil war during which some 250,000 people lost their lives with millions being internally and externally displaced.

The opportunity afforded me by the Rotary Foundation inspired me to more deliberately work to promote peace in my war-torn country, and especially to recognize my skills as a journalist as critical tools in peace building. I have made it a point, through my work, to meticulously weigh the impact of the stories I choose to report, and the angle at which I choose to write, specifically within the context of the fragile peace that Liberians enjoy today.

For me, reporting is no longer merely about reporting what I see and hear within a political or economic context, as important as those issues are to development in any country. Now, journalism, to me, is about fostering a national dialogue on the mending of our war-torn society – specifically at the inter-personal, inter-tribal and class levels; to challenge my readers to consider and value non-violent responses to conflict; to tell the stories of those who are daily reliving the misery of war; and to highlight the hope of a new beginning, which so many Liberians have seized to chart a new path for their lives.

Since completing the program, I have been privileged to not only apply transformative peace building to my own work, but also to share the knowledge I gained with my fellow reporters on site. First, as Associate Editor [and later Senior Editor] at the Daily Observer newspaper, I shouldered the oversight responsibility of editing local news and features, and conducting high-level exclusive interviews.  I also served as the first point of contact for all reporters, correspondents and freelancers at Observer, assigning and monitoring the activities of staff reporters and correspondents in the field. I guided them in the process of writing their stories by ensuring that the angle of their stories were newsworthy, the stories were coherent, well-researched, well-structured, descriptive, analytical, narrative, to mention just a few.

The Daily Observer is Liberia's oldest and leading independent newspaper. Well respected for its legacy of objectivity and substance in the turbulent 1980s, the Observer continues to set the standard for professional journalism in both skill and ethics. I still found, however, that my fellow journalists, like myself, could benefit from a different perspective on the news, and a different view of what is 'newsworthy.'

Throughout my activities at the Observer, therefore, I first made sure that a point of convergence was created between my journalistic integrity and values of balance, fairness and accuracy in reporting, and that of my conflict analysis and transformation knowledge gained through my Rotary Fellowship. This, I felt, was leading by example. Fully armed with these tools, I coached my colleagues to guard jealously the credibility of their stories, and to pay close attention to the consequences of their reporting so that, for instance, they do not allow themselves to be used by politicians or any 'potential peace spoiler' to incite people to antagonism or violence through the spread of hate messages.

In other words, I made it a point to ensure that my fellow journalists value professionalism over ambition, and that we were conflict-sensitive and creative in our work as conveyors of information for public consumption. This kind of training proved critical and timely, given that Liberia's October 11, 2011, legislative and presidential elections saw politicians of various persuasions abusing their access to the media to incite violence and make threats against the ruling party and its proponents. 

Earlier, I worked as a Research Support & Monitoring Officer at the United Nations' Office for Project Services (UNOPS)/Interpeace on a nationwide project (Platform for Dialogue & Peace) aimed at mapping up potential sources of conflict and those things that could possibly promote peaceful coexistence among Liberians. Recommendations from that project informed policy decisions in the area of national healing and reconciliation currently being spearheaded by national government.