9 February 2006

So, I bet you all were expecting a posting tomorrow. Ha! Fooled you.

The Focus media empire is starting to grow. I think we’ve hired two more experienced reporters and one more cub. I say we think we hired the two experienced reporters because Shyaka and I both made it clear we wanted them to start up with us today, but they didn’t show up. I’m wondering if they misunderstood when I asked for copies of their work. I just want to know with whom I’m working.

Our cub is a person who has never done journalism before. Hell, I don’t know if Leilah has even written anything before in English. She’s just out of high school, waiting to start up university. All we wanted from her is to know she’s aggressive enough to ask questions. I can turn her into a writer and journalist. I wanted two cubs originally, but I figured out that was going to be too much work.

We’ve also hired a society/gossip columnist. We had to take photos of him to put on top of his column. I actually got to start shouting things like, “Work it! Work with me! Come on, give me something!” and mean it. I felt like Austin Powers. Or Mo. Shagadelic.

We’ve got a circulation/advertising manager and an office manager. I think we’re hiring a second designer named Khaddafi (no, I’m not making that up. Next up I want a copy editor called Kim Jong Il). Once we have it in our budget, I think we’re stealing Rwanda’s one and only news photographer from the New Times. His name is George, he’s got the best camera in Rwanda and the best part is he actually bears a striking resemblance to George Jefferson.

So, now that we’ve got our mighty reporting staff of potentially six, plus Shyaka and me, we’re ready to take on the world. We just need to figure out whether the people we hired yesterday are actually working with us.

Our interview process is not as rigorous as one might want. Essentially, it’s three questions:

1) Do you have a pulse?

2) Do you really speak English?

3) When can you start?

Of course, if an applicant does the Rwandan Grand Entrance, where someone walks in the door, stands there and waits for someone to talk to them, they’re automatically out. We want aggressive reporters.

The Rwandan Grand Entrance is one of the most annoying things I’ve found in this country. That’s saying a lot. A person will just stand there for a good 30 seconds before saying anything. Usually they don’t. And people move so quietly that sometimes they’ll come up behind me and scare the hell out of me.

Sometimes the person will build up the courage to actually speak, but by that point I’ve already started. So they stop. And then I stop and ask what they said. But they won’t say it because I’ve already started. It’s like walking down the street and bumping into somebody. And then the person steps to one side at the same time you step to the same side, and you go into the who-goes-where dance. That’s the Rwandan Grand Entrance. Why can’t people just come in, introduce themselves and say what they want? How is this so hard? Even the Kenyans think it’s insane.

Now, we just need an office and more computers. We’ve got three-and-a-half; two bought by Focus, my laptop that I hope makes it through the experience and one of VOA’s computers that we have to get off of when VOA needs it. We’ve now got sign-up sheets for the computers so people don’t kill each other.

Shyaka said the VOA is starting to get tired of us being here. I hope we don’t have to move the whole operation to my house.
So, as I said earlier, we’re making it. How do I know we’re making it? We’re the subjects of vicious gossip around the small but petty Kigali journalism world. The other papers are saying that it’s written by white people, that the copy-editing is so good that the RPF must have paid for it (although I’m not sure those guys actually read what we wrote if they think that the governing party is paying for this paper). As Shyaka said, “That means we’re doing something right. When they see the second issue, they’ll think the World Bank is funding us.”

Focus is following my motto, although it wasn’t adopted. Our enemies are being crushed. We are driving them before us. We hear the lamentations of their women.