On a seemingly relaxing Sunday afternoon at an Ethiopian friend’s house, I received a phone call with news that earlier that day more than 100 people had drowned or been crushed to death.
A stampede had ensued at an annual festival – to which I’d been invited with the press pack – after protesters and police clashed beside the waters of a holy lake, 30 miles south-east of my location in the Ethiopian capital.
After hanging up, my thoughts swung from: “Damn it, what a scoop I’ve missed!” to “Hold on, who cares you weren’t there? More importantly, what a grotesque human catastrophe.” Indeed, the mind baulks at the horror and panic of those caught in the epicentre before utter darkness replaced all.
I’m learning about the grubbier side of journalism as a freelance in Ethiopia, which shortly after the festival disaster declared a six-month state of emergency to deal with protests that had been smouldering since November 2015.
When I first arrived in late 2013, I typically wrote about entrepreneurial businesses amid the growing economy, and cultural topics such as traditional food and dancing. “You do human interest pieces, James,” a friend commented with a gently derisive smile, “interesting in their own way.” Well, yes. They weren’t searing investigative pieces set to garner a Pulitzer Prize. But I nevertheless felt they had their own justification.
“The West knows how Africans die but not how they live,” is a refrain with which I can’t argue. So I liked how my stories demonstrated that good news existed through how Ethiopians lived their lives. Most importantly, my writing wasn’t related to anyone suffering, a key relevance after passing my twenties in the British Army, busily engaged in the debacles of Iraq and Afghanistan.
I well remember a torrid day in 2009 spent in the battlegroup headquarters in volatile Helmand province, writing a report on a bomb dropped by one of our jets that had killed six children. Labouring over boxes that needed filling, as radios blared with firefights and helicopter evacuations, I swore I would never again place myself where I must write such appalling testimony.
But increasingly I find myself closer to writing about such loss and carnage. Protests here have swelled from opposition to land grabs to a general movement against the government’s rule. Numbers of those killed by government security forces during clashes are estimated upwards of 600. Many more languish in prison.
Just after the festival disaster I submitted a long article about Ethiopia’s protests – the stampede serving as an ideal introductory paragraph. My invoice for $500 followed shortly. Most articles don’t pay that; but still, that invoice rankled. As does the other side of the journalism market: those to whom I sell my stories. For despite Ethiopia facing existential crisis and possibly sliding towards chaos, pitch after pitch fails to stir Western editors’ interests. Polite rebuttals sometimes emerge, usually emails go unanswered.
I suspect this is due to Ethiopia’s turmoil not offering a succinct story, and admittedly it’s all pretty confusing. Addis Ababa remains relatively unaffected, with trouble usually occurring deep in the hinterlands, remaining sporadic and elusive. It’s hard to piece everything into a nice, easily digestible story as with the Aleppo tragedy, for example. The pictures from that destroyed city look great, in terms of editorial layout, while the catchy headlines write themselves – and click, click, click go the internet hits.
Further frustration stems from how, like innumerable occasions before in Africa, Ethiopia’s situation, while bad, isn’t irreparable. Though it may get that way if the likes of the Ethiopian government and international partners such as Britain and America don’t get their acts together.
While there’s too much self-righteous back-patting over journalism as the Fourth Estate, fair and nuanced coverage of Ethiopia’s situation can only help promote constructive influences. Also, the void left by mainstream media’s absence is filled by social media, which in Ethiopia’s case is unfortunately generating bogus claims that stoke further agitation.
Increasingly of late my former career appears morally superior. It never pretended to be something it wasn’t: its primary role was to kill the enemy in war, although it was also remarkably good at doing the opposite. The British Army’s peacekeeping record was the main attraction to my idealistic 21-year-old self.
Journalism, on the other hand, purports to espouse untold stories about the downtrodden, and yet it too often chooses instead to feed the beast that is the news cycle with what the non-downtrodden in the West crave: easily digestible stories about unmitigated African disasters – after the fact, of course. Learning about developments beforehand appears beyond readers’ comprehension, while not usually making for such gripping voyeuristic stories.
Time will tell whether Ethiopia’s current plight proves a lucrative period for me. Currently it’s looking unlikely. All the while Ethiopians die as the protests writhe on dangerously.
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