The Gambaranna

The going rate to interview a witch is 1 Cedi (approximately $.67), so I make sure to fill my pockets with small bills before approaching the camp.  When I enter, I kneel and clap twice to pay tribute to the Gambarrana.  He is a Muslim and dressed in a long white flowing robe with blue trim.  He inquires of my purpose, and Simon translates to him that I am an American journalist working in Ghana and interested in writing about the witch camps.  Simon has told me the Gambarrana is skittish about providing access to journalists, as previously reporters have been critical of the conditions of the camp.  I assure him that I have heard many good things about his efforts and then supplement the statement by slipping 5 Cedi’s under his rug–as Simon had suggested.  He nods and we stroll inside.

The compound is made  of a number of small, circular-shaped huts that face each other in groups of five or six.  They have dirt floors and no water or electricity.  When I arrive, the women have just returned from the field and are scattered about, mostly sitting on the ground or tiny footstools.  In the middle is a large pile of peanuts that they sift through, occasionally taking a handful to munch on.

An accused witch in Gambaga arranges nuts (photo by Brian McAndrew)

The women’s faces are weathered, their shoulders slumped, and they appear torn between two  forces: the survival impulse that drives them to push on and the anguish of their plight, which has caused them to be banished–under the threat of violence and even death–from their friends, families and homes.

The first interview I conduct is with Kondug Dute.  Approximately sixty years old, she arrived in Gambaga from her village ten years prior, after being accused of bewitching a child who had died.  Inexplicable deaths–especially among the young–are one of the most frequent motivators for allegations of witchcraft, and Dute was accused by the  son of a rival.  She was chased from the village amidst threats of violence and now lives in Gambaga selling firewood.  “I have been disgraced and separated from my family, yet I have done nothing,” Dute tells me.  Like most of the women I interview, Dute says that she is innocent of all allegations of witchcraft.  However, Dute and others do not deny that witchcraft exists.  When I ask one woman if she believes that her peers might be witches, she tells me flatly:  “There’s no way I can know that; it’s between them and God.”

My first interview in Gambaga (Photo by Brian McAndrew)

I interview four women that evening and all of their stories are similar.  Most have been accused after a death in the village, others simply because a rival said they were “haunting them” in their dreams.

It is rare that there is any fact-finding effort in regard to the allegations facing an accused witch. The only possible vindication occurs during a trial by ordeal that is sometimes held at the witch camp.  In these cases, a woman slaughters a fowl in the presence of the Gambarrana and other spiritual leaders.  If the fowl dies with its wings facing upward, the woman is exonerated.  According to Simon, this happens on average 20% of the time, but even if a woman is found not guilty she will still often stay at Gambaga.  One woman, who had won her trial, tells me that the stigma associated with witchcraft is so great that she was unable to return to her home regardless of her “acquittal.”

The women tell me that their biggest problems are a lack of food and basic healthcare.  They look emaciated and the few children milling about appear even worse.  One lays motionless on the ground the entire time I am conducting interviews.  It is naked and a horde of flies congregate around its buttocks.  For the initial twenty minutes, no one attends to it, despite the fact that it moans on and off.  I grow more and more disturbed by its presence and finally one of the women notices my discomfort and carries it to another part of the compound.  “It has a sickness in the rectum,” Simon says.

I pay the women and they thank me and insist that I take handfuls of peanuts.  It is just a bit after seven when I leave the compound, but there isn’t a single restaurant open anywhere.  I buy two packages of biscuits and head back to Martha’s. There I take a shower, pouring three buckets of cold water over my head.  I go out to look for a beer and find one and a few drinking partners as well.  I want to know if they believe that the women of Gambaga are actually witches, so after a drink I summon the nerve to ask them.

“Of course,” they say.  “Why else would they be here?”

Read the first post in this series or check out pictures of Gambaga in the photo  gallery.

(1) So really now, to become a faculty member at a university like this, you must have some intelligence and be somewhat aware of what’s going on in the world  around you. Is it possible that they simply have common sense? Once the republicans pull their heads out of their asses and decide to bring something constructive to the debate, instead of deliberately working to undermine the attempts of our current President, then it will be appropriate for their views to be included in the debate.

–UO Student Michael Vucinovich

Note:  Vucinovich gets huge bonus points for actually addressing me as the “Watchdog” in his letter.

(2) While I enjoyed your article about the dearth of Republican professors, the answer to your dilemma is quite obvious.  Professors, by definition, tend to be very intelligent individuals.  That would explain why so few professors are Republicans.

–Dave Taube

(3) You may be very upset that the University of Oregon, which, I may point out, is funded by people who live in a liberal state, and therefore, no surprise, tends to be liberal, attracts professor applying for a job who tend to be liberal. But as a student you have a choice. You do not have to come here. You most certainly can choose to spend your money to go to school in Alabama, or Texas, or Mississippi, or Georgia, or Louisiana or South Carolina.  And if you like conservatism, you can certainly attend the University of Texas, and you can walk past the statue of Jefferson Davis every day on your way to class.

–UO Journalism Professor Dan Morrison

Note:  I have invited Professor Morrison to publicly debate the merits of political diversity.  He has unfortunately declined.

Well, what can I say except that I was dead wrong.  My suggestion that UO is intolerant of ideas on the Right couldn’t have been more off base, as evidenced by these three pieces of feedback that argue that (a) conservative ideas should be blacklisted because they’re inappropriate (b) only stupid people are Republicans and (c) students at UO with conservative ideas should smarten up and flee to the South, as their sort of savage dogma is better served by universities with Confederate icons.

Yet regardless of these responses, I feel supremely unfulfilled. I think ideological diversity is important, but clearly a lot of other people disagree.  However, they haven’t done much to convince me.  For this reason, I’ve decided to offer a 12-pack of beer to anyone who will debate me on camera about the merits of ideological diversity in higher education. That’s right, all you have to do is spend thirty minutes hashing out the issue, and if at the end you can look into the camera and state “I don’t think it’s harmful that only around 2% of faculty members at UO are registered with the Republican Party,” you take home the brew of your choice.  If you’re not 21, 20 bucks.

In this time of economic crisis, we all need to do our best to stimulate spending.  Here at DanLawton.com, we’re more than happy to do our part.  Simply leave a comment with your email address or contact me at the email in the about section and you’ll be knocking back a dozen cold ones in no time.

The disparity, as dramatic as it is, mirrors the the political composition of many other journalism schools across the country.  A 2005 study of nine top journalism schools by David Horowitz and Joseph Light revealed similar ratios of political affiliation.  Columbia University had 15 Democrats and one Republican, while Berkeley had ten Democrats and zero Republicans.

According to a study performed by UO economist Bill Harbaugh in 2006, there are 15:5 registered Democrats in the total UO faculty for every one Republican.  The Oregon Daily Emerald reported that 96% of contributions during the 2008 election cycle went to Democratic candidates; in 2004 the figure was 100%.

Academia generally trends to the left, and the concentration of liberal professors at UO isn’t too surprising.  In most subjects, politics are irrelevant, but not in journalism.  The question of whether or not reporting is fair and objective is reliant upon how the beholder perceives the ideas presented.  It is innately difficult to support journalism that reveals an inadequacy or flaw in one’s own ideology.  How many times does a pro-choice advocate heap praise on pro-life reporting or vice-versa?

In fact, the two biggest media watchdogs in the business are divided on ideological terms.  Media Matters is “dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.” Newsbusters calls itself “the leader in documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias.” The bottom line:  people rarely push ideas they dislike, and that goes for college professors as well.

“College is supposed to be the marketplace of ideas ” said C.J. Ciaramella, editor of the UO conservative magazine The Commentator.  “But it’s more like the Model T of ideas here, you can get any one you want as long as it’s black.”

Jon Palfreman, a long form documentary filmmaker and UO journalism professor, agrees the University can be hostile to Republican thought.  “Diversity of ideas means embracing ideas that you hate as well as ideas that you like.  We don’t have many smart right-wing ideas on campus here, and you probably won’t survive by promulgating such ideas,” he said.

I’ve been a journalism graduate student at UO for the last year, and though I’ve found the facutly to be generally open-minded, there’s no question that the discourse suffers when half of the political spectrum isn’t represented.  Journalism thrives on ideas, not just left-wing ideas or right-wing ideas, but a steady stream of diverse ideas. I don’t think a ratio of 26-0 or 38-2 achieves that.  Although, short of a political litmus test (which I’d oppose), I’m not exactly sure what can be done about it.

Designed by Adobe Air–who share some of their insights via video–the application offers the perfect confluence of print and digital features.  In the words of Wired Columnist Ryan Singel, “Journalism’s grey lady, the New York Times just threw down her cane and sprinted to the forefront of online newspapers.”

The reader’s interface is painstakingly clean.  Headlines appear on the main page and on the left navigation a list of sections similar to a newspaper table of contents reside.  The text has the look and feel of a print newspaper, but the hyperlinks and the convenient navigation of a news website.  Plopped down in the middle of my desktop, it felt as natural as reading a newspaper on a wooden desk; actually it felt a lot better.

The reader is an application that anyone can download for free, temporarily.  The free download gets you a healthy portion of NYT content, but for $15 bucks a month you can get it all.  It’s totally worth it.  The reader updates approximately every five minutes with new content.  It also gives you a week’s worth of content archives packaged by date.  So, just like a print newspaper, when you click on May 10, you get a digital newspaper from May 10.

If there is a flaw in the design, it’s that there is no way to be able to easily bookmark content.  It would be fabulous if somehow Delicious or another bookmarking application could be integrated into the reader.

Regardless, I congratulate The Times  for creating such a great product. There are so many different models to retrieve news online now–social bookmarking websites, Twitter, Facebook, RSS readers, etc–that often we overlook the fact that a news organization might be able organize its own content intuitively as well. The Times has accomplished that and more, and hopefully others take notice.  Meanwhile, I’m signing up for a subscription stat. (Oh, did I mention you can even fill in the crosswords via your computer!)

Download the NYT Reader Here

The hearing, convened by Senator John Kerry, featured representatives from the Washington Post, the Dallas News and Google.  Kerry, who has expressed solidarity with  newspapers–especially the plight of the Boston Globe–led things off by welcoming attendees to “a brave new world” and quoting Joseph Pulitzer’s refrain, “Our republic and its press will rise and fall together.”

Maryland representative Ben Cardin (D) stumped for his recently proposed Newspaper Revitalization Bill, which would allow newspapers to receive 501 C-3 classification and the beefy tax breaks that accompany them(see past post on its flaws).

Former Washington Post Managing Editor Steve Coll struck a balanced tone by referring to the current state of journalism as “creative destruction.”  He complimented the innovation of online enterprise, but questioned if citizen journalists and bloggers could provide the same valuable public interest reporting as newspapers.

David Simon, a former journalist and producer of The Wire, was much more blunt.  He bashed blogging as “repetition, commentary and froth,” and content aggregation as leeching.  He laid much of the blame at the decision of newspapers to tie in with Wall-Street and “unencumbered capitalism”

However, his heated remarks were no match for Huffington.  In her thick Greek accent, the baroness of blog lacerated newspaper bosses for “putting content behind walled gardens,” “sticking their fingers in the dike” and “pretending the last 15 years didn’t happen.”

She stated her optimism that journalism would survive and flourish, but recommended that efforts be pulled away from saving newspapers and toward saving journalism.  She lauded the blogosphere for its ability to follow and hammer away at a story until it “breaks through the static,” and she excoriated the mainstream media for not doing its journalistic duty in covering the lead up to the Iraq War and the financial crisis. The news industry has had “far too many autopsies and not enough biopsies,” she said.

It was a rousing performance.  I didn’t agree with all it, but Huffington clearly has the spunk and tenacity necessary to transform a crisis into a period of innovation and growth.  Considering the pessimistic state of journalism, I’ll take it.

You can watch the video of the hearing here

Artwork By Patrick Finney

Kerry, who is chair of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, wrote a public letter to the Globe expressing solidarity with the newspaper industry and a commitment “to ensuring that the vital public service newspapers does not disappear.” But while Kerry’s rhetoric is a sweeping gesture to the newspaper industry, what action his hearings will spawn is unknown.

One potential solution is The Newspaper Revitalization Act, a bill that would attempt to preserve newspapers by allowing them to operate as 501(c)(3) non-profits. Introduced by Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., the legislation has drawn both praise and derision. Its major benefit would be tax exemptions for newspapers and the ability to solicit tax-deductible contributions. However, in order to be considered a “qualified news corporation,” newspapers would have to fulfill criteria that could be problematic.

The first and most evident snag is that the bill excludes local newspapers – roundly perceived as the most sustainable – by mandating beneficiaries provide national and international coverage. The second, and more troublesome, is that according to IRS tax code, 501(c)(3)s aren’t allowed to advocate a political opinion. This means that newspapers will no longer be able to endorse politicians, and could also potentially face economic consequences if their reporting was alleged to contain advocacy. Imagine a rally by conservatives to exclude a publication that reports favorably on gay marriage, or an effort by liberals to deny non-profit status to a newspaper that gives sympathetic coverage to Second Amendment advocates.

The news world’s reaction to this potential bailout has been predictably negative. In March, while speaking at the University of Oregon, Boston Globe editor Marty Baron responded with skepticism to a question from the audience about a bailout for papers; most in media are equally apprehensive about the government taking a large role in news. New media evangelists also have harsh words for the bill, which they perceive as an attempt to rescue an industry that is unsustainable.

Daily print circulation has fallen from 62 million twenty years ago to 49 million, while online readership now accounts for approximately 3.7 billion page views per month. Massive revenue shortfalls, predominantly triggered by the loss of classified revenue to sites such as Craigslist, paint a future of attrition for the newspaper industry.

Senator Kerry’s motives are commendable, but they make the common error of conflating the issue of saving newspapers with saving journalism. Print newspapers are going to die – there’s simply no way around it. It is time to for the journalism industry to abandon nostalgia and transition fully to the digital medium.

In this effort, the government can help. After 17 quarters of steady growth, online advertising dropped in the fall of 2008 and has yet to recover. Journalism has yet to be effectively monetized on the Web, and one of the reasons is that content aggregators such as Yahoo and Google are swiping news under the protection of the legal doctrine of “fair use.” In early April, the Associated Press stated its intention to cut down on the use of its content without compensation, but it faces a tough battle against wealthy corporations and hordes of rogue bloggers.

If the AP was to lose a major “fair use” lawsuit against online content providers, it could set a disastrous precedent. Congress needs to step in as a mediator and broker a deal between the two parties that provides more compensation for online revenue. In addition, the framework of the Newspaper Revitalization Act should be altered to primarily encourage the development of digital media outlets that specialize in niche reporting. It is no longer sustainable to have general interest media, but by encouraging the development of Web sites for local and public interest reporting, foreign affairs, and a variety of niche media, it may be possible to replace much of the valuable reporting done by newspapers. Lastly, instead of being granted 501(c)(3) status, these media outlets should be able to apply for a completely separate tax exemption that has no restrictions on political content.

Yes, the road ahead for journalism is long and winding, but if the government uses a smart, flexible approach, it can assist in breathing life back into an institution America can’t afford to let die.

This editorial appeared in the Oregon Daily Emerald today.