By Samul G. Dweh
You can find a piece of me—a journalist, and member of the Press Union of Liberia (PUL)—in each component part making up the heading of this article: I’m stagnant, I’m poor, I have fought for ‘Kato’, & I have broken up from many (print) media institutions.
I had worked for eight different print media companies (newspapers) between 2011 (when I returned from my 10-year refugee life in Nigeria) and 2014. I resigned from each on exploitation—meaning due to low salary (not commiserate with my professional input); and being shouldered with three or more people’s works (news editor, general editor/editor-in-chief, proofreader, and reporter)
The publisher of one popular newspaper started me on USD140, as probation (trial) salary (for three months) for proofreading of stories, promised to increase to at least USD250 (from the fourth month) if I performed well.
But he couldn’t fulfill promise of increment in the fifth month in spite of readers’ calls on “huge reduction in spelling and grammatical errors in the paper nowadays” (comments from one of the paper’s oldest reporters to the new proofreader, quoting a reader in the fifth month of proofreading). Worst, the publisher left me out of the list of beneficiaries for weekly phone’s recharge card, saying only ‘editor’—not proofreader— and reporter were entitled to the recharge card.
THE AUTHOR: Samuel G. Dweh is President of the Liberia Association of Writers (LAW) and a Journalist and member of the Press Union of Liberia (PUL). He is reached via: (+231) 88661896/776583266)
But I found out members of the production department (for printing of the paper and taking it to the newsstand) were being given. Who will a publisher lash at when there are spelling or grammatical errors in the paper: the proofreader or the person in the printing machine room?
Throughout my time in the media, my highest salary was USD300 (for editorial duty and reportorial duty) in a print media institution owned by a Lawyer and human rights activist with much focus to land use by foreign companies. Multiply this amount by six, and you will have USD1,900. This publisher refused to release at least USD75 as salary to anybody to come as reporter, which often compelled me to be a reporter (going on the field for news), besides my contract-sanctioned ‘editorial duty’, for a six-month period.
On more than four occasions I—the only captain of the paper—slept at the printing press to collect the copies and take them to the ‘newspaper ground’ (general distribution point), because the ‘production man’ didn’t show up at the office. On the employer’s exploitative character.
I’m stagnant. This is about financial stationary. I’ve not earned a sum total of two thousand United States Dollars (USD2,000) as salaries in six months at each of the eight newspapers I was working with as a proofreader, editor, or editor/reporter.
This exploitation caused my pulling out of the mainstream media, to go into freelance. Yet, I’m poor, can’t pay house rent and utility bills in time, can’t provide my family’s needs in time. One of two factors is responsible for my financial impotency in the media. 1.) Ignorance of most (Liberian) new makers (subjects of my stories) to ‘see’ the high quality of my ‘news feature-kind’ story (full of images) 2.) Impoverished status of most of those lifted by one of my stories. (One example: 17-year old Liberian ‘inventor’ Jacob Trawally, now on ‘architectural’ scholarship at Booker Washington Institute, BWI, on my story about his ‘invention’ (house built from paper and metal scraps).
I have fought for ‘Kato’. ‘Kato’ is a Liberian pidgin. It means two things. One is ‘inducement’—to protect the image of a bad (public official) or to destroy the person’s enemy or rival. The other is ‘alms’. ‘Kato’ is mostly given by a news maker at an event. For any purpose it is given, ‘kato’ takes the form of ‘money’, and, when given at an event (say, press conference) is ‘transportation’—to get the reporter back to his/her office/house. My ‘fighting’ had always been grumbling against or quarreling with a fellow journalist who received the ‘kato’ from an interviewed news maker for a group of journalists at an event, and leave me out or cheated me on the sharing.
‘Kato’ eases stress in any reporter who didn’t get ‘daily’ or ‘weekly’ public transportation fare from his/her employer. ‘Kato’ also plays the role of ‘salary’ for many journalists whose monthly pay is being withheld for any reason—and therefore tour the Town, searching for anywhere as venue for an event where ‘transportation fare’ will be dished out to (all) journalists present.
I have broken up from many (print) media institutions. Reasons are stated above.
Now, I’m working with a Christian newspaper, where I’m editor-in-chief and sometime take up a reportorial role. Since I joined Christian News in September, 2017, I have been accepting a ‘salary’ less than USD40 for the ‘financially handicapped’ Management. But I’m satisfied because I’m not experiencing reportorial or editorial stress, no shoving from the paper’s publisher on me to ‘punch’ (blackmail) somebody to vomit money that would go to the publisher alone (as it most often happens in the secular media), and I have long-period editorial or reportorial sabbatical on the paper’s one-time-a-week appearance on the newsstand.
However, the feeling of ‘breaking off’ with the Management of Christian News is bubbling in me and would ‘sever’ my ‘employee status’ with the entity at the end of February, 2019, if the Management did not honor my demand of an increase in salary beyond four thousand Liberian Dollars (below USD30, equivalent, at current exchange rate: 160-1).
Now, on the general body of Liberian media practitioners—employers and employees.
STAGNANT MEDIA
The stagnation here refers to professional production of quality work and finance.
On positive impact on the general society, in my opinion, the Liberian media is not growing. This stagnation is caused by one or more of the following: continuous demonization of or harshly criticizing others, praise-singing notably corrupt public officials (which cause them to continuing in the malpractice); or depicting the Country as an ‘evil terrain’ to foreign investors wanting to come down. So, many outsiders are not putting enough money into the general media for the development of the entire sector.
POOR MEDIA
My focus here is on those who are not into Public Relations—writers or broadcasters always hiding the ‘black spots’ of individuals, organizations, or a Country’s representative body (Embassy, Consulate, etc.)
Outside of the ‘PR circle’, to which there’s an exodus of younger journalists nowadays, reporters continuously struggle to eat three times a day (breakfast, lunch and dinner), to get transportation fare to and from their work places, to pay utility bills in time, and to help a family member in financial distress.
JOURNALIST FIGHTING FOR ‘KATO’
This is a common scene, especially during national political elections time when candidates dish out monies to journalists through one person in the group. In most cases, these ‘news makers’ prefer passing the ‘kato’ through the reporter from the most popular newspaper or radio station.
Some beg for the ‘kato’. In 2017, one newspaper’s management team slapped an indefinite suspension on the paper’s reporters among a group of journalists who ‘begged’ a government official for money, after another newspaper had published the ‘appeal’. Later reports revealed that the employers of each of the reporters who begged the government officials had been underpaying them.
The media entity owner’s ‘kato’ is bigger, because he/she is the gateway to the ‘PR story’ or blackmail one.
MEDIA BREAKING UP
In recent times, there has been proliferation of new newspapers on the newsstand, and new radio stations.
The latest, in the ‘newspaper group’ is a newspaper called INDEPENDENT INQUIRER, allegedly formed by nine (former) employees of the INQUIRER NEWSPAPER (founded during Liberia’s civil war time), owned by Mr. Phillip N. Wesseh, who was one of the first reporters of the Daily Observer newspaper—Liberia’s current oldest independent newspaper founded on February 16, 1981. Daily Observer is still active!
The former employees stated ‘bad labour practice’—especially low salary—as cause of their break-off. Their former entity—IMQUIRER—is one of handful of (independent) media institutions favored by majority of UN Agencies, foreign Diplomatic Missions, and International NGOs for advertisement. Huge patronage also comes from the legal—public or private—sector of Liberia, probably based on the publisher being an Attorney-at-Law.
The break-away spirit is gradually pushing reporters of Truth FM/TV, owned by for Liberian oil businessman Musa Bility, who protesting against the entity’s management team’s withholding of their three-four months’ salaries.
The same ‘dissident spirit’ is hovering over King’s FM, founded by 1995’s World’s Football ‘King’ George Weah, Liberia’s current President.
The leadership of the Press Union of Liberia (PUL), headed by Charles B. Coffey, Jr., is struggling to calm reporters’ salary-related charged nerves at Truth FM/TV and King’s FM.
“At King’s FM, some reporters told us the management is giving them seven hundred Liberian Dollars as salary,” Mr. Coffey reported to the general body of media practitioners at PUL’s Mass Membership Meeting at the Union’s Headquarters on January 4, 2019. This amount, salary, was less than ten United States Dollars, considering the exchange rate (LD157-USD1) during the time the reporter complained to the PUL president.
On ‘low salary’, many media employers are pointing to reporters’ default on performance of assigned tasks. “Why should I meet reporters’ demands for higher salaries, when they continue skipping days to submit stories, or they hardly produce any sensible information, called news story, during most part of the month,” an owner of a news media entity grumbled outside of the PUL, minutes after the end of the Membership Meeting.
All—or most—of the problems shaking the foundation of the Liberian media can be settled by a Document titled Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), a Liberian media employer-employee contract that spells out who should be employed and what should be the person’s remuneration (salary) in line with the ‘Minimum Wage’ standard set by the Ministry of Labour of the Republic of Liberia.
But majority of media employer are vehemently resisting the activation of the CBA—especially those who are committing ‘heinous crimes’ like keeping reporters without Employment Letter, which is an offence under Liberia’s Labour Law. Journalists-employers who often rub their mouths on non-media employers on ‘bad labour practice’ are equally practicing bad labour practice!
When media employees go on the rampage on ‘bad labour practice’ (withheld salaries), media employers find excuse in ‘poor sales’ of individual newspapers (the poor sale is due mostly to the Liberia’s high illiteracy rate and financial handicaps of the lettered section of the population) and advertisers’ delay to settle bills. But during this same time, employers are sampling new cars, frequently travelling abroad on business trips or for vacation, or buying or building new homes. The employees are looking on enviously.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Political stories should be restricted to government’s decisions or policies—never digressing to the decision makers’ private lives. The news makers see the latter as ‘insult’ and would never do business with such person or business entity.
Much attention should be paid to human interest or development stories—how other Liberians are using their talents or skills to beat poverty. (Example: My story on 17-year old Jacob Trawally, published in the Daily Observer and Heritage newspapers) It’s stories like this global media support entities like United Nations Development Project (UNDP) love to see in the paper. (Even though the UNDP has not given my ‘Development Journalist of the Year Award’ in the Media Excellence Award organized by the Press Union of Liberia in 2018 )
There should be varieties of ‘interest stories’ (soft news)—on culture & tourism, relationship/marriage, arts and entertainment, etc. of Liberia. These different items will attract dozens of different people to the paper or radio would will in turn be the media entity’s ‘customership’.
Put on the entrepreneur’s cap.
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