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From the recently-discovered weblog of Michael Perelman, an uplifting story about a civic-minded news service in Monrovia, Liberia.
Perelman says:
I don’t really have a good foundation in this technology. I realize that it doesn’t take much to sit at a keyboard and make grant pronouncements about the way the world should be. > > Today I read in the New York Times about the “blogger” using centuries-old technology in a way that puts the modern media to shame. > > The article describes Alfred Sirleaf, the 33-year-old managing editor of The Daily Talk, a white plywood shed trumpeting the latest headlines along Tubman Boulevard, one of the capital’s main thoroughfares. > >
He writes his stories very carefully on large blackboards and even makes accommodations to help communicate the material to illiterates. He had to struggle to get a high school education. He has been arrested. And yet he continues to persevere.
And most of all the displays a spirit that puts the the corporate media to shame.
From the New York Times article:
The shoestring operation brings him no income. > >
“I just manage along with whatever money I can find,” he said. Occasional gifts of cash and pre-paid cellphone cards keep him in business.