26 April 2006

Focus got Jayson Blaired. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, one of our reporters was making up quotes. The explanation that he gave was that he got a friend at the New Times to give him quotes from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees when he had trouble getting in touch with them. The alternate explanation is that Bonny just out-and-out plagiarized. Both of these are time-honored New Times practices that we’re trying to break. And by the way, he got the story wrong.

Either way, Bonny had to go. Apparently the explanation Shyaka and I gave on Monday didn’t sit well with some of the reporters. One of them, Helen, asked why we couldn’t accept an apology and let Bonny come back. We both took our turns explaining journalistic integrity and all that stuff. Trust is all we’ve got, blah, blah, blah.

So yesterday, I spoke to Helen again to make sure she understood what Shyaka and I were talking about. “Well, I know someone who sawed off his pregnant wife’s head during the Genocide. He asked for forgiveness and they let him back into the community,” she said.

Touché. How do you come back from that? I mumbled something about the same blah, blah, blah that I did on Monday. And then finally Helen and I figured out that she didn’t understand exactly what we meant. When we explained the plagiarism and lying (Bonny told me he spoke to these people), Helen conceded that in newspaper terms what Bonny did was worse than chopping off his pregnant wife’s head. I’m glad I made my point.

Anyway, I’ve got big news. We finally know where we’re going. I’ll give you a clue. Here it is: Beef jerky time.

Stumped? For the one of you who got the clue (Jon Abrams, I’m counting on you), congratulations on existing in fantasy land with me. For the more normal people out there, I’ll give you another hint.

In the movie “Trading Places”, Eddie Murphy impersonates a student from this African country on a train, and punctuates a fake prayer with the phrase “Beef jerky time!”

Still stumped? Fine, I’m out of clues. It’s Cameroon. Rebecca will be, as she puts it, a “professional schmoozer” in the Yaondé office. Yaondé is the capital. It’s basically a fund-raising, PR and relationship position. I don’t quite understand it, but I don’t need to. It’s her job. Officially, her first day is May 20, and we’ll know exactly when we’re leaving Kigali soon. But it’ll probably be between May 15 and 20.

Don’t be embarrassed if you don’t know anything about Cameroon. There’s not a whole lot written about it. The reason is that it’s stable and has been for around 40 years. It’s essentially a one-party state where the president’s been in power for 20-something years. It has a raucous independent written press, but political parties mostly control the press. I did say that it was essentially a one-party state. There is an opposition, but it will never get into power. It’s sort of like Japan.

Anyway, what else do I know about Cameroon? It has an 85 percent literacy rate. The corruption is blatant, obvious, open and joyous. Cameroonian food is apparently very good, and the culture is reportedly warm and inviting. I can understand the Cameroonian French accent much better than the Rwandan French accent (a couple of Cameroonians who work for CRS were here last week). There are over 200 different ethnic groups, and over 200 different languages. And yet they haven’t killed each other. It’ll be interesting to come from a place where two essentially colonially created ethnic groups take turns killing each other into a place where people at least can’t be bothered. I think there’s a book there, but I’m not sure.

Finally, Cameroon’s neighbors are basket cases. We’ve got Equatorial Guinea, which has lots of oil, lots of poor people and a violent corrupt government. We’ve got Gabon, with its impressive national parks but the longest-serving head of government in the world, President Omar Bongo. And we’ve got Chad and the Central African Republic, which are vying for the title of “saddest place on earth”. I’ll let you know who wins.

All of those places are filled with great stories, and there are no foreign journalists in any of these places, except Chad. The field is open. I’m ready to go.