Liberia: Introducing the International Reporting Project

Sign found taped to the wall inside a Liberian church. Photo: Laura McClure

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Editors’ Note: Laura McClure is traveling in Liberia this month on an IRP Gatekeeper Editors trip organized by the International Reporting Project (IRP). The IRP, formerly known as the Pew International Journalism Program, is a nonprofit dedicated to filling gaps in American media coverage of international issues.

As always, Mac’s got you covered on human rights issues. But this month, I’ll be joining her in blogging on the Africa front. I’m here in Liberia for a few weeks—along with 10 US-based editors from outlets such as NPR, the Washington Post, and The Root—to see how a country rebuilds after a gruesome and protracted civil war. Soon I’ll introduce you to born-again warlords, former child soldiers, General Peanut Butter—a potential 2011 presidential candidate here—and Jewel, the ex-wife of charismatic war criminal Charles Taylor. You’ll also meet some of the inspiring women who brought peace to Liberia and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first female president. Gods and WiFi willing, I’ll be blogging once daily about all this plus health, forced labor, and whatever shiny culture factoid I pocket that day in Africa. Got a question for me about corporate social responsibility in Africa? Leave it for me in comments—I’ll be reading them each day.

MONROVIA, Liberia The first thing you notice is the weight of the air, heavy as a hand on a damp night. Second comes the smell: Ocean breeze and burning trash, tropical flowers, raw sewage. Then sound: taxi horns honk, crickets and frogs, low voices speaking African languages and English. Everything is muffled by the soupy air.

I write this in a hotel room with my head lamp looped around my neck, off but ready, in case the lights go out again. Though the Cape Hotel has good WiFi, magnificent feats of ongoing electricity are still rare in Liberia, a fragile country whose capitol is either powered by generators or not at all. Nothing’s darker than a night road in Monrovia; no streetlamps, only rare lights in houses, the occasional car. Here in Room 222, a Stephen King movie was just starting when Teddy, a smiling Cape Hotel employee, flipped on the TV to demonstrate how well it functioned at the same time as the air conditioning, the lights, and the fridge. Later I unplugged every appliance I could reach. (Sorry, Teddy!)

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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