09 April 2009
Podcast: Peta Thornycroft, Freelance Journalist
Veteran reporter on Africa talks about how to cover conflict zones
The speaker is Peta Thornycroft, a freelance journalist who currently reports from Zimbabwe. She has given up her British citizenship and served time in prison in order to continue her work.
(begin transcript)
It’s a very methodical way of working. There’s absolutely no glamour attached to it whatsoever.
And you know, getting arrested, it’s not just the discomfort. You know, it costs a fortune for your employers hiring lawyers. It means if you’re a freelancer you don’t earn any money. Your family is worried. And you’re not doing your job. You’re not paid to go and be sitting in police cells. You’re paid to be out doing the story. And then it attracts unwarranted attention to you. I mean, the thing we try and do most of all is to keep a low profile.
[music]
I am a bit of a gypsy. I don’t seem to have a — I’m not quite sure where I live. Although, I do live in Zimbabwe, but I move a lot, and I’ve now got my possessions in Harare down to two suitcases and that includes groceries and knives and forks.
I think one needs to be able to be calm. I think that being calm and collected and being able to blend in and not attract attention to oneself and being familiar with the local story so that you can cover yourself off. In other words, knowing about the culture, if possible knowing some of the language, and being able to do it without necessarily having a notebook in your hand so that you don’t look like a journalist. I think those are very important skills and training that people going to hot areas should get.
And being a good liar. (laughs) I hate to say it. I mean, there I am having vowed my ethics and profession to tell the truth. I’m an absolutely extremely efficient liar. And I have developed a series of lies that I tell. But I’ve worked them all out before I go out, you know? These are not spontaneous lies. I know exactly what lie I’m using wherever I’m at. And so, it’s an ability to plan a trip as well. You know, how will you get — I mean, not only do you plan because you don’t want to get caught, but you’ve got to be sure you’ve got fuel at the other end, you’ve got to be — where are you going to stay? Especially if you’re a white, will it look logical? Is it logical? Will local people look at you twice because you fit in or will they look at you because you don’t fit in?
[music]
Developing contacts and looking after your contacts, I think is completely, absolutely at the fundamental part of it. Especially if you’re not doing just event reporting. In South Africa, for example, I could do a hard news story every day without a contact because people were being killed in front of my eyes. In Zimbabwe I have depended enormously more than ever in my life on contacts. And so developing that network of contacts, and a balanced network of contacts, I think is really important.
Protecting sources is ghastly, honestly. It’s ghastly. Because you can never follow up your own story in a way. And nobody else can follow you either. So you’re alone in that story.
And also that no matter how hard the situation is, is not to forget the basic training. We keep the story going week after week, month after month, year after year. And because of that we get enormously tied into the story and need to remember what we are, first and foremost. And that’s journalists and not activists. Because once you become an activist, once you cross that line, you’re then in more danger than you were anyway. Because once you are involved personally, you will do things you wouldn’t do if you were just involved professionally. So I quite like the thought that journalists go in for their three years and do their stint for three years, and I’ve just been doing it far too long.
So, I think it’s a hideous assignment, actually. (laughs)
In a way, I did feel a commitment to tell the story, that I felt that somebody had to goddamn well do it.
(end transcript)
