African Journalism: II

As you can tell, I never quite completed the "series" of entries about journalism in Africa that I had envisioned way back at the beginning of this semester. That one chance visit to a local press house was about as close as I got to having a journalism internship this semester, which is more or less how I wanted it. I thought it might be cool to visit a few newspapers or radio stations, but in the end, well, I really just got lazy. But I think I have also decided that I do not want to *study* journalism as a political scientist, even though it interests me. I want the flip side - to study politics (and society, life) as a journalist.

Strangely enough, one of the biggest journalistic influences that I have encountered here was a book written by an American writer and brought to Ghana by another American. It only took me a week to read Philip Gourevich's account of the Rwanda genocide (and the background and aftermath), We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families. I couldn't put the book down. I already knew what would *happen,* and I knew the history and politics surrounding the images made famous in Hotel Rwanda and other accounts. But he just pulled the whole book together so amazingly well. To my mind it read like a narrative, not of the genocide itself, but of an author's journey of discovery. If I am lucky enough to get the opportunities that he got to travel to the places he did and interview warlords and presidents... maybe in 20 or 30 years I could write a book like that. Or maybe a single column.

OK, so anyone who knows the journalism world knows how unlikely it is that I will have a job at a place like the New Yorker in 10 years that would send me to a place like post-genocide Rwanda. But if I ever get that chance I hope I take it, and I hope I approach it with the clarity and compassion that he has. I don't want to be a travel writer by any means, but I want to be a travelling writer (ideally being paid by some English-language publication). I sort of feel like an idiot going back to the States and (hopefully!) taking a job at some community paper or other. I wonder if the skills really transfer, and by that I mean I doubt that they do. But people seem to think that is the path to the kind of job I want, and I really hope those people are right. I'm not sure what path will get me to the point where Philip Gourevich was - do I work for a publication until they pay to send me to Africa, or do I work in Africa until a publication will pay me to write about it? Do I go to graduate school for journalism or international affairs? Or both? Or neither? I don't know.

But I know what kind of writing I want to be doing in 20 years. Can I write my reading list on my resume too?