My spirit is on sick leave
An email I (gratefully) received from a reader last week:
"I am doing undergraduate research at Michigan State University about
selective media coverage that portrays African countries in a negative way.
I can't remember exactly how I stumbled upon your reporting, but I was
attracted to your positive portrayal of Ghana, as well as other African
countries, without negating some of the obvious hardships embedded in the
cultures. I hope to explore and document Africa in this way in the near
future, but for now, I'm stuck in Michigan doing undergrad research.
"Anyways, I was hoping that you could offer a bit of feedback on why the
American press is so disproportionally hungry for negative stories about
Africa, and generally reluctant to report positive stories. I'd also like
to know if this has anything to do with your decision to work in Africa."
Today I helped a little girl in a school uniform cross the street. I said hello to all the vendors on my usual route to Michelle's house, where lately I've taken up residence at her kitchen table so I can scam her wireless. I had a banana smoothie for breakfast. I woke up to brilliant sunny weather.
I was also called racist.
I've written about how much I worry about how my writing is perceived (under a posting called "Sunshine Journalism") and so you can imagine that I had to sit down when my friend Justin called to warn me that the Statesman -- the paper I worked with during my last stint with Journalists for Human Rights -- had reprinted an article I did for Newsday under the banner headline: "A RACIST JOURNALIST ON GHANA: The Statesman came across on the worldwide web this example of racism disguised as journalism by a Karen Palmer for Newsday, NY, USA."
The Newsday article is about a delegation from Major League Baseball, in town to lend support to Ghana's nascent Little League teams. You can find it here: http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/ny-spghana045080195feb04,0,343817.story?coll=ny-mets-print
For six weeks I worked in the Statesman's newsroom; each week I delivered a seminar on journalistic basics, complete with work books and games and ways to keep the staid stuff kind of interesting. I gave up the job when my freelance commitments meant I couldn't give the time I thought the job deserved. I left in a hurry, but it had nothing to do with the Statesman. I thought I had the editor's respect and support. Clearly, I was wrong.
When I spoke to him this morning, he told me he actually hadn't read the piece all the way through, but he trusted the sports editor when he said it was racist garbage and told him he could deal with the story as he saw fit. He said both he and the news editor agreed it might have been "a bit harsh" to run that headline. When I asked him to kindly point out the racist elements so that I might learn from this experience and avoid similar accusations in the future, he told me he took exception to my description of Ghana as an "impoverished West African nation" and felt I was biased in my reporting of the fact that there was no popcorn or peanuts for sale at the game, but women selling eggs and pepper and men selling vanilla ice cream and fresh coconuts.
But Gabby, I said, that is what happened.
No it's not, he said.
Yes it is, and frankly, how can you tell me what happened when you weren't there?
Oh, we had a reporter there, we just chose not to run his story.
I told him I was devastated by this, that I take seriously my responsibility to portray Africa generally and Ghana specifically with fairness and accuracy, that I couldn't believe it was a newspaper that I had worked for that would label me a racist. He told me I was being too emotional.
He told me he had instructed the sports editor to write a column explaining his actions and that I could write a piece to go with it explaining mine. I told him I would not be writing for the Statesman and was only interested in seeing an apology published in the column. He told me he would not be apologizing and I can't tell him what to do. But you can tell me I have to write an article for you Gabby? Does that seem fair?
He told me he could imagine how I was feeling. I should consider him a friend, not a foe.
My friends don't call me racist.
As the Statesman's own editorial says today: "apologising after the damage has been done is not good enough; rather, the media must stop the stories before they start. ... There are official checks in place, supposedly to counter the kind of sloppy journalism which too often seems to dominate our newsstands. ... There are unofficial checks too, which we must become more disciplined about enforcing if the media is to retain a scrap of credibility."
I know the Statesman's sports editor. We've spoken about how he's from a small town outside Suhum, whose name was changed when the British arrived and they found it too hard to pronounce. I know he's been writing a political column for more than 15 years for various newspapers, always using code names and code words for people and episodes from Ghana's history. I know all this because I got to know him. But he never got to know me. I suspect he had no idea that "a Karen Palmer for Newsday" was the same woman who came into his office twice a week to help with editing and story structure and journalism skills. I'm just another obruni, not worth his time, hardly worth his notice.
So, I walked a little girl across the street today and was rewarded with a smile. I walked through my neighbourhood and felt like it was my neighbourhood. I got to eat what Africa provides and Canada will never have. I got sunshine in February.
When I leave this country, I will try hard to remember these things. What I'll be unable to forget is that today I was called a racist.
I hope that the editors at the Statesman come across this entry and that they see it as heartbreak disguised as anger.
"I am doing undergraduate research at Michigan State University about
selective media coverage that portrays African countries in a negative way.
I can't remember exactly how I stumbled upon your reporting, but I was
attracted to your positive portrayal of Ghana, as well as other African
countries, without negating some of the obvious hardships embedded in the
cultures. I hope to explore and document Africa in this way in the near
future, but for now, I'm stuck in Michigan doing undergrad research.
"Anyways, I was hoping that you could offer a bit of feedback on why the
American press is so disproportionally hungry for negative stories about
Africa, and generally reluctant to report positive stories. I'd also like
to know if this has anything to do with your decision to work in Africa."
Today I helped a little girl in a school uniform cross the street. I said hello to all the vendors on my usual route to Michelle's house, where lately I've taken up residence at her kitchen table so I can scam her wireless. I had a banana smoothie for breakfast. I woke up to brilliant sunny weather.
I was also called racist.
I've written about how much I worry about how my writing is perceived (under a posting called "Sunshine Journalism") and so you can imagine that I had to sit down when my friend Justin called to warn me that the Statesman -- the paper I worked with during my last stint with Journalists for Human Rights -- had reprinted an article I did for Newsday under the banner headline: "A RACIST JOURNALIST ON GHANA: The Statesman came across on the worldwide web this example of racism disguised as journalism by a Karen Palmer for Newsday, NY, USA."
The Newsday article is about a delegation from Major League Baseball, in town to lend support to Ghana's nascent Little League teams. You can find it here: http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/ny-spghana045080195feb04,0,343817.story?coll=ny-mets-print
For six weeks I worked in the Statesman's newsroom; each week I delivered a seminar on journalistic basics, complete with work books and games and ways to keep the staid stuff kind of interesting. I gave up the job when my freelance commitments meant I couldn't give the time I thought the job deserved. I left in a hurry, but it had nothing to do with the Statesman. I thought I had the editor's respect and support. Clearly, I was wrong.
When I spoke to him this morning, he told me he actually hadn't read the piece all the way through, but he trusted the sports editor when he said it was racist garbage and told him he could deal with the story as he saw fit. He said both he and the news editor agreed it might have been "a bit harsh" to run that headline. When I asked him to kindly point out the racist elements so that I might learn from this experience and avoid similar accusations in the future, he told me he took exception to my description of Ghana as an "impoverished West African nation" and felt I was biased in my reporting of the fact that there was no popcorn or peanuts for sale at the game, but women selling eggs and pepper and men selling vanilla ice cream and fresh coconuts.
But Gabby, I said, that is what happened.
No it's not, he said.
Yes it is, and frankly, how can you tell me what happened when you weren't there?
Oh, we had a reporter there, we just chose not to run his story.
I told him I was devastated by this, that I take seriously my responsibility to portray Africa generally and Ghana specifically with fairness and accuracy, that I couldn't believe it was a newspaper that I had worked for that would label me a racist. He told me I was being too emotional.
He told me he had instructed the sports editor to write a column explaining his actions and that I could write a piece to go with it explaining mine. I told him I would not be writing for the Statesman and was only interested in seeing an apology published in the column. He told me he would not be apologizing and I can't tell him what to do. But you can tell me I have to write an article for you Gabby? Does that seem fair?
He told me he could imagine how I was feeling. I should consider him a friend, not a foe.
My friends don't call me racist.
As the Statesman's own editorial says today: "apologising after the damage has been done is not good enough; rather, the media must stop the stories before they start. ... There are official checks in place, supposedly to counter the kind of sloppy journalism which too often seems to dominate our newsstands. ... There are unofficial checks too, which we must become more disciplined about enforcing if the media is to retain a scrap of credibility."
I know the Statesman's sports editor. We've spoken about how he's from a small town outside Suhum, whose name was changed when the British arrived and they found it too hard to pronounce. I know he's been writing a political column for more than 15 years for various newspapers, always using code names and code words for people and episodes from Ghana's history. I know all this because I got to know him. But he never got to know me. I suspect he had no idea that "a Karen Palmer for Newsday" was the same woman who came into his office twice a week to help with editing and story structure and journalism skills. I'm just another obruni, not worth his time, hardly worth his notice.
So, I walked a little girl across the street today and was rewarded with a smile. I walked through my neighbourhood and felt like it was my neighbourhood. I got to eat what Africa provides and Canada will never have. I got sunshine in February.
When I leave this country, I will try hard to remember these things. What I'll be unable to forget is that today I was called a racist.
I hope that the editors at the Statesman come across this entry and that they see it as heartbreak disguised as anger.
posted by Palmer in Africa at 8:25 AM
4 Comments:
You know, the guys at the Statesman might have a point! Mind you, just a point. It has to do with the word ‘impoverished’. It is just a word, right! Well, in the post-colonial African context it is not a neutral term at all. It appears to posit a viewpoint, a way of looking at Africa through Eurocentric lens. Looking at African lives not as an entity in itself, but vis-à-vis an European/North American perspective. I did a sample of about thirty articles relating to Africa by twenty-nine different American journalists and the word appeared in all but three of the articles. To the curious reader such findings begs certain questions. They are uncomfortable questions that deal with such issues as the role of perception and outlook in one’s writing. Also questions like, are all these journalists using the same boilerplate? Or simply copying from each other? And if they show such penchant for that word, what does that imply?
I said they guys at the Statesman might be right up to a certain point. They are wrong in every other way. Your use of the term might make you a lazy writer, or at worst, an unimaginative or imitative writer; but a racist! Give me a break. And mind you, I am half-Ghanaian. In my book that accusation makes your accuser (s) incurably prejudicial. At best they are lousy thinkers, and at worst, the penny-worth propagandists. Journalists like them are yet to learn to think of themselves as free individuals first, and as Africans second, or even last.
Mind you, I am not saying you are lazy or unimaginative or imitative. If you were you would be ensconced somewhere in Winnipeg or Toronto, or somewhere cozy, writing some sleazy celebrity or something, with no worries about electricity cutoffs, etc etc etc
Your journalistic fight in africa if largely against the apathy and bias of the(western) media and people. The fact that The Statesman chose to use you to push their "foreign journalists are racist" viewpoint shows the fight at another level. The battle continues, it's just harder to see who's on which side.
Funny I just found this article on the Statesman's website.
Get your facts right: a call to the newspapers of Ghana
06/02/2007
....... typical of a media too quick to ruin its subjects on the basis of incomplete evidence and - sometimes – just mischievous speculation.
I wonder if they read their own stories?
Nuff said.
Luv ya Palmer
My experience with the racist comment in Ghana was always aggravating. I found that the way they throw the term around is what we Westerners would call a 'cop out.' I akin it to my 2 year old nephew who reactively cries 'unfair!' when he gets upset because he did something inappropriate, but doesn't understand why it's so.
I came out of a bar one night and ignored one guy begging for money, as I helped a drunk obroni into a cab. He yells racist at me for 5 minutes, but when my neighbour comes by, and seeing me, gave me a hug; the same beggar tried to apologize. Then he asked for money again.
I dunno, it seemed like sometimes there's a chip on the collective shoulder that remains from imperial days, and its turned into an easy reflex....
And I was called a whole bunch of Chinaman names, and I'm not even chinese. I could have construed that as racist if I chose to. But, meh, I figured it was just a symptom of other bigger issues.
Is Mary still one of the editors at the statesmen? She's white, and I wouldn't have thought she'd ever let anything like that get by...
Say hi to anyone I know that's still there for me, and keep up the positive work.
Cheers,
-Gabby (JHR Gabby, not Statesman Gabby)
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