I came up with a great idea to do a post called “What have Liberian news outlets focused on when reporting on Charles Taylor’s trial?” But as I started gathering headlines, the most remarkable thing was how few there were.
If you go to the Star Radio website today–one of my favorite Liberian news sources–you will see 10 stories. Only one is about the Taylor trial, and it’s three stories down. If you go to allAfrica.com’s Liberia page, where they collate (albeit not thoroughly) headlines from several Liberian news sources, over the past week only one of the stories from a local paper was about the Taylor trial, and it was simply marking the start of Taylor’s testimony. The apathy is truly stunning.
Nonetheless, here are some headlines from local news sources over the past few days:
- Sirleaf not founding member of NPFL, says govt [responding to Taylor's allegation that she was] (Star Radio)
- Taylor alleges US help in “jailbreak” (Daily Observer newspaper)
- Gov’t debunks Taylor’s testimony [that Sirleaf was founding NPFL member] (Daily Observer newspaper)
- I’m not guilty–Charles Taylor (The Analyst newspaper)
- Taylor makes shocking revelation [that US helped him escape jail] (The Analyst newspaper)
The Liberian people are interested in the Charles Taylor trial. However the present government has tried it best to keep the populace uninformed. There were several attempts by the Defense team to see if the government would pay the cost to stream the trial into Monrovia like it is done in Freetown. This they refused to do. The only other way for the majority of the population to get news on the trial is by newspapers. However I agree that the number one topic of discussion right now is the TRC report.Ironicly alot of people who were saying Taylor should face his day in court names have now been been recommended for Prosecution. All of a sudden they are now saying they should be exempt from prosecution.
Star Radio is great. I wish they would list current commodity prices the way they did in the past.
I am actually interested in the going rate for rice and cement. Actually, bigger news then the Taylor trial.
Thanks.