ALLISON CROSS

Most journalists know a face-to-face interview is better than one conducted over the phone. The quotes you get are meatier, more detailed. You’re better able to describe what the interviewee is wearing and and how the emotion shows on their face. When working in radio or television, in-person interviews are almost always necessary. I’ve worked mostly in newspaper journalism and have seen how laziness and a lack of resources can keep a journalist behind their desk instead of out in the field. These stories often fail to capture readers. It’s easier and less expensive to do interviews over the phone.

At my radio station in Bo, we have no choice but to conduct our interviews in person. On a purely practical level, everyone here uses a cell phone. Landlines are a rarity. The cell phone reception is atrocious and it’s nearly impossible to have an extended conversation that doesn’t end with the other person hanging up on you. So, doing an interview over the phone would be tricky, never mind the fact that they just don’t have the equipment to tape cell phone conversations. Lugging massive tape recorders that use cassettes (remember those?) the reporters and I set off in the morning in search of stories.

But we don’t hop in a car. We just start walking. Occasionally we’ll grab a motorbike if we’re going far, but the reporters almost always prefer to walk, because it’s cheaper. I’ll ask if it’s a long walk, looking up warily at the sun, and they’ll chuckle and say no. Thirty minutes later, we’ll have arrived at the Bo district council office, and I’ll be drenched in sweat. I quickly learned to bring three survival items: sunscreen, a litre of water and toilet paper, for peeing behind bushes.

I taught them the expression, “Hit the pavement.” They laughed and said it would be more accurate to say, “Hit the dirt road.”

The more we walk together, the more the reporters open up. One reporter told me last week the staff hadn’t been paid in three months, which is disturbingly common here. He told me he hadn’t wanted to tell me, because it was an embarrassment. Another reporter told me what it was like to work as a journalist during Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war.

Earlier this week, one of the reporters, Easmann, took me to the village of Nyagolihun, on the outskirts of Bo. He was there to follow up on a story he’d been following for about two months. Two Chinese companies were blasting nearby for different construction projects and the force of the explosions are damaging homes in the village. With a trail of children in tow, men from the village toured us around, showing us the cracks in their homes and their mosque, which was only recently built. They said pregnant women and the elderly have left the village, because they fear the explosions will make them sick. Easmann did several interviews with people from the village (although he didn’t interview women as well as men as I had suggested). It was clear how upset the people were - upset that their houses were crumbling and that no one was doing anything about it.

We ran into two UN workers who were in the village to investigate the complaints about the blasting. The UN is easy to spot in Sierra Leone. They drive around in shiny white SUVs and wear laminated nametags. They offered us a ride back to town and we happily accepted. I felt a little guilty watching the landscape whisk by, thinking of my slower pace from the morning, as I trudged along under the hot sun. But I didn’t have to worry. I was out again the next day, walking 45 minutes to attend a church service masquerading as a press conference.