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| Starting my day with coffee and JEAM |
One of the
many books I read during my first few months at site was the Autobiography
of Benjamin Franklin. In it, I learned the 13 virtues which he aimed to
perfect within himself (Temperance, Silence, Order, Resolution, Frugality,
Industry, Sincerity, Justice, Moderation, Cleanliness, Tranquility, Chastity,
and Humility). I learned that even without going to college, he received a
bachelor’s degree from Yale (honorary). I learned that he was one of the
greatest inventors of his day (bifocals, wood burning stoves, oil lamps, public
libraries, and of course electricity). And I also learned that a well edited, published,
and distributed newspaper can become a valuable megaphone to a man who seeks to
solve problems in his community.
Luckily, the volunteers
over the 3 previous years in Alto Molocue, namely Kate Biling and Chris Boyer,
had formed and maintained a school newspaper named “Chaves Para o Futuro”. This meant that much of the work to start a
Peace Corps secondary project (finding a local counter-part, receiving
authorization from the school, procuring students) had already been done. But
due to an irregular publishing schedule, conflicts with school administrators,
and the normal turn-over of most of the students, continuing with the same
newspaper just didn’t make sense. I remembered that when I was a kid, the most
exciting time to play with LEGOS was when you had just taken them out of the
box and the possibilities of what they could become were endless. Even from a
purely selfish perspective, let alone for the students, it is much more engaging
to create something from scratch.
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| JEAM on the day it was formed |
Now I have no formal
education in journalism. But I did grow up in a home where a day could not
begin until I’d read the most respected newspaper from the greatest city in the
most powerful country in the world, namely the New York Times. Though at first
I had to wear sunglasses to read its blindingly brilliant grey pages, reading
it every day was how I prayed at the altar of journalistic excellence. Then,
while my mom worked for the Glory of Reporting itself, I was able to visit the
great temple in NYC and bear witness to the organized madness that is
professional journalism. So with the pinnacle in mind, I spent many a night noting
down how to organize, write, distribute, and pay for a school newspaper.
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| JEAM's Logo, isn't she beautiful? |
With a head and
notepad full of ideas, I began to figure out how things work at ESGAM (Escola
Segundaria Geral de Alto Molocue) and put the word out that a newspaper was
being started. After enlisting Freitas, a professor of geography and part time
journalist for Radio Alto Molocue, we began posting fliers advertising a
journalism club at the school and held our first set of meetings. Most of these
encounters were centered around a key newspaper forming activity, like choosing
a name for the paper, electing an editor in chief, designing the paper’s logo,
printing journalist ID’s, giving a basic Journalism 101, and learning how to use
my digital camera. Afterwards, we would spend the remaining time brainstorming
ideas for articles and reviewing professional newspapers, either Mozambqiuean
ones that I would bring back from my travels or the exemplary New York Times in
the print.
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At that point we set
April 30
th as our publication date and started collecting articles.
It was slow at first, with maybe 1 article being completed a week. But once the
journalists had their super fancy publisher edited color printed laminated ID
cards, the articles started to pour in. Soon enough, our publication date had
arrived, but due to gross managerial oversight, I had neglected to leave enough
time for editing. So instead, we went to print 8 days late (still a victory in
my book) and put out 7 copies of our first edition, at a cost of 150 mets
(roughly 5 dollars). Lacking other sources for funding, I paid for the
publication of this edition myself. Though not all that expensive, it set a
poor precedent. How sustainable is a newspaper that has to depend on the
largess of poorly stipended volunteers for printing costs?
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| Professors looking over the teacher copy |
During the printing
process, which was a comedy of double sided printing errors, I found out that
there were two
papelarias in town,
the one we were at and its competitor. Grabbing at this information as a route
to solving the problem of funding, I went down the street with my
chefe de jornal Jonas to the check out
the other
papelaria. After a quick
conversation, this second
papelaria
quoted us 112 mets for the same job. I then informed them that just like me,
many people in town did not know that they were cheaper than the other
papelaria, and if they bought add space
in our next edition, they would be able to get the word out. Leaving the
dona da
papelaria to think over this little
proposal, we went back to the first
papelaria
to inform them that their competion was willing to do the same printing job for
less, and our next edition would be printed there. Accomplishing the rare hat
trick of three birds with one stone, Jonas and I had printed
our first edition,
potentially made our first sale, and planted the seeds for our first price war.
Mua ha ha ha.
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| Students and Teachers reading the first edition |
After getting the
two 1 sided copies signed by the pedagogical director of the school, we got
some glue and posted them on the moveable bulletin boards, ready for the next
morning. We then placed a two-sided copy in the
sala das professors, the
secretaria
da escolar, the
administration, and
the
municipio. The next day, the
boards were moved outside, and we could officially consider ourselves as the
successful creators, writers, editors, publishers, and distributers of a school
newspaper. Sure there were many spelng and grammarifictastically errors, which
no lack of people enthusiastically pointed out, and perhaps the pictures could
have used captions, but otherwise it turned out better than I could have ever
dreamed. Megaphone in place, now what do I want to say?
He’s a what, he’s a what
He’s a newspaper man
And he gets his ideas from a newspaper
stand
From his boots to his pens
To his comments and his reps
He knows that any little article will do
“Dancing Choose” - TV On the Radio
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At that point we set
April 30th as our publication date and started collecting articles.
It was slow at first, with maybe 1 article being completed a week. But once the
journalists had their super fancy publisher edited color printed laminated ID
cards, the articles started to pour in. Soon enough, our publication date had
arrived, but due to gross managerial oversight, I had neglected to leave enough
time for editing. So instead, we went to print 8 days late (still a victory in
my book) and put out 7 copies of our first edition, at a cost of 150 mets
(roughly 5 dollars). Lacking other sources for funding, I paid for the
publication of this edition myself. Though not all that expensive, it set a
poor precedent. How sustainable is a newspaper that has to depend on the
largess of poorly stipended volunteers for printing costs?.jpeg)
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