Letter from Baltimore 6

JULY 4th offers the feel of American patriotism at its best. Like all former colonies, the United States of America, goes into a frenzy to mark the day of its independence. Apart from the ubiquitous stars and stripes and the partying, fireworks display puts life to the festivities to mark the end of British rule in 1776.
I went to witness the fireworks display at an open near my cousin’s home in Fredrick County. Along the road on both sides were endless queues of cars that stretched out for miles. The evening quiet is interrupted by the ear-splitting blasts of fireworks rockets that lighten up the dark skies. It was a night to behold.
I tell you what, besides the reporting and writing experience, the Alfred Friendly Press Fellowships, offers a true taste of America. From chilly and wet Springs to a hot, humid and wet summer, I have been through it all already. All of them.
Summer excites and wears you down at the same time. The air feels warm and relaxing like in a sauna should you take a walk right after a downpour.
I gave my talk at the Johns Hopkins; the role of the media in disease control. I seek your indulgence.
Thank you for allowing me to talk to you today. It is humbling and a privilege to talk to a distinguished audience in one of the world’s acclaimed universities.
As a primary school pupil, I wished to be a doctor ... a surgeon may be. That was never to be. I chickened out when I thought about the blood, tears and death. My mother was a community nurse giving injections to patients in a rural health centre in Kenya. She retired a week ago today. She did basic nursing; vaccinating, giving injections, and tablets for such common diseases like malaria, cholera, common cold ...
If given the opportunity, I would go back and do medicine again. Just probably.
Back to our topic today; the role of the media in disease control.
Obviously, the role of the media in society is to bring to light the hidden facts. We inform, educate and entertain society. The main plagues that man faced at the turn of the 20th century were illiteracy, disease and ignorance. No doubt, ignorant people often fall sick. But ignorance can be banished. And the media plays a great role in that. People need to be told that drinking dirty water is bad for their health. People need to be told about washing hands after visiting the toilet.
They need to hear about good sexual habits; that using the condom limits the chances of getting STDs. And that absconding never killed anyone.
We are a mirror to society and telling the citizens about the consequences of their habits is our role. We tell them about good eating habits and warn them about the dangers of excessive food, drug and alcohol consumption. With us, silence is never golden.
We tell them about getting treatment when unfortunate to fall sick.
Most importantly we rally up communities to fight disease. Sometimes with regret, we create stigma. Like the stigma associated with Aids ...
I save you the trouble of the half-an-hour-long talk, but what do you think? It went well and I got questions and I fired back the answers as best as I could.
In the audience was my friend Mr Robert Little. He just got back from Iraq the previous day. He has lots of recollections from his trip there though he says Baghdad was fairly safe than the last time he was there. He told me about the day he came back to his room in the barracks in the Green Zone and found an Iraqi journalist wearing his bathroom sandals.
“I asked him why he was wearing my sandals and he said he (the journalist) thought it was for community to use during prayers.” I laughed at that.
The journalists were friendly and spent the night watching American movies.
Otherwise, I have no planned appearances lined up soon, but I had another meeting across the street the next day. Bob and I met Mr Robert Keith for a drink at Fell’s Point one of Baltimore’s fantastic spots.
A former journalist, Keith visited Kenya in the 1950s as the independence wave spread across Africa. Working for the African-Institute, his trip took him from North Africa to Central Africa to South Africa to East Africa then back to North Africa before returning to the US. His girlfriend worked in Morroco.
He met some of Africa’s greatest men like Julius Nyerere, who later became President of Tanzania, Tom Mboya a former trade unionist and one of Kenya’s charismatic politicians who was assassinated in 1968. He met a fellow journalist Mobutu Sese Seko, who later became Zaire’s president and a brutal dictator. Nyerere and Mobutu have since passed on. He looked back with a tinge of nostalgia.
Keith also met Keneth Kaunda, the former President of Zambia. At probably 78, Kieth has a photographic memory. As we walked out of Duda’s Pub after an hour of talk, we felt we should have spent more time with Keith. We did not rule out a future meeting.
It is exhilarating that in my next blog, I will writing with the thought at the back of my mind that; this time next month, I will be in Nairobi. Till then, please enjoy.

Letter from Baltimore 5

IF you saw your friend got shaved, goes a Swahili saying, put water on your head and ready for your turn. On the afternoon of Wednesday June 25, plans to purge The Baltimore Sun newsroom of about a quarter of the staff was announced.

I was a witness to one of the saddest episodes in the US print media brought to its knees by falling circulation numbers and falling revenue from advertisements. Cut-throat competition from the Internet is blamed for the bad state of things.
I thought forward of things in Kenya. Would I be there long enough in the newsroom to see a replay of this? Should I ready myself for the onslaught from the Internet?

Steady growth over the last three years has transformed a once mediocre, average and low-paying sector into one of the best professions in the country. The Press in Kenya is more free, robust and assertive than before. This has translated to growth in readership numbers and advertising revenue.

Things have taken a turn for worse in the US; dwindling revenue sources spells doom for the Fourth Estate.
In Kenya like the rest of the Third World, with the Internet and mobile telephony taking a grip on the population, the writing is on the wall.
That won’t be soon, but certainly not long enough, probably 10-15 years.
On Wednesday, talk by the publisher, Mr Tim Ryan about halting a nosedive in the company’s revenue earnings could not cool down the journalists who are fiercely loyal to their trade.

The Community Room crackled with tension as we took our seats and Mr Tim Franklin, the editor set out to announce the bad news. Thereafter, he invited questions.
“Who will speak for the voiceless? Asked one employee poignantly.

I saw a tear drop from one of them. I was sorry. I had a lump in my throat. I couldn’t help but share the grief, the anger, and the bitterness.
“I have worked my … off all these years for the company and now I am given two weeks to make a decision about a place that I have spent my whole life?” said another.
The management has given the employees two weeks to take the buy-outs, which if the numbers are low, will be followed by layoffs.

And it was with a heavy heart that I accepted the inevitable. My diligent, patient and caring, Mr Harry Merritt told me that he was taking the buyouts. That he may not see me through to the end of my fellowship troubled me. Nothing quite prepared me for that despite his constant assurances that all will be well even if he is gone.

My friend Robert Little finally left for Iraq last week. He will be back in a week’s time.
Quite truly as predicted, Poynter rocked, literally. I got the experience, the skills and the techniques I needed. It was so much fun and at the end I wished we were there longer than a week.
If you never came out to play soccer in the blowing breeze from the sea that last night, you missed real fun. It was good to be together again.

Frolicking in the sandy beaches at Tampa was refreshing after three months trying to find our way around the world’s most complicated, social, economic and political society. It couldn't be better than that for me.

In the office, just like before, I have done stories and they have been published. Therefore so far, so good. I am a better writer. My writing is crisp, balanced, sharp and objective.

I see things in different light. My worldview has changed, expanded. I have a different judgment about certain prejudices that I held before.
I wrote a story on the killer malaria and believe you I have been invited to give a talk at the Johns Hopkins University on Tuesday next week on the role of media in disease control in Africa and America.

That aside, I cannot deny the feeling of looking forward to the end of the program next month. That soothing, comforting feeling of home, sweet home excites.

Yet despite that, I know that my sojourn here still has a lot more to offer and I look forward to all that it can offer. I plan to visit New York, Washington DC and just get into a bus and tour Baltimore for the fun of it.
The first impressions of the city as old, rusty and falling apart city have changed with the numerous visits inside the town as I went around to do my assignments.

Fewer activities are planned for the remainder of the program. I am starting to change gears. I hate to see my graph take a dip once I arrive in Nairobi as predicted by Prof Gary Weaver. It is inevitable, but I want to limit the shock as much as possible.

A month and three weeks to go and the summer heat is unrelenting. The other day I went for a walk-about in Baltimore. As I lumbered up Lombard Street I rued taking the walk. It being near the sea, Baltimore experiences hot, humid summer. But that is better than the cold Spring that we found in March.