AHCJ member reports from Malawi, Zambia

By Andrew Van Dam, AHCJ

Abortions in Zambia, AIDS orphans in Malawi and medical education in Africa. WUNC reporter and AHCJ member Rose Hoban dove headfirst into all of these issues and more on a recent grant-funded reporting trip to Africa.

In addition to nine radio stories, Hoban blogged extensively about her experiences and produced several videos and multimedia slide shows (photos and multimedia can be accessed through her blog).

Hoban focused on stories with links to North Carolina, but said she still regretted spending so much time and effort away from her beat. Hoban said she kept returning to the same question: Why should this matter to folks in North Carolina?

“I ended up eventually getting really good answers, but it required me to be relentless,” Hoban said. “I think it was a good thing to do, but at the same time I am truly ambivalent about whether this was the best use of my time.”

Hoban reported on a North Carolina couple running an organization coordinating care for thousands of AIDs orphans in Malawi, a North Carolina nonprofit’s involvement in access to reproductive health in Zambia, and UNC’s massive health care and research operation in Malawi.

Her most widely discussed dispatch has been Reproductive Health in Africa, in which she visits a North Carolina-based nonprofit’s clinic and explores its efforts to improve the reproductive health of Zambian women. The graphic piece explores the issue of abortion availability in the developing world and the dangers of traditional abortion methods that involved everything from sticks to crushed glass.

“Some of the stuff that I experienced in Zambia looking at the abortion issue, it got me thinking about the abortion debate in this country a different way,” Hoban said. “I’m really glad my editors gave me the leeway to do the story.”

Hoban said that even with adequate preparation time and extensive experience traveling in the developing world, she had to throw out her carefully laid plans from almost the minute her aircraft touched down.

For the first time in her life, Hoban also tried working with video (on a cheap flip video camera) and used Soundslides to put together photo/audio slide shows. She recommends both media for similar projects.

“At one point I literally had the mic in one hand and the video camera in the other hand,” Hoban said. “I was able to tell the story a couple of different ways.”

Hoban advises others planning similar efforts to be prepared for anything, take advantage of every medium, and expect to work. Hard.

“It’s not a vacation,” Hoban said. “In any way, shape or form.”

Hoban said that at one point she worked long hours for 10 solid days under mental and physical demands far beyond what a reporter might encounter on their home turf, and that she really appreciated a short break in South Africa that she was able to squeeze into her itinerary. Hoban said the work didn’t stop once she returned home, especially because she hadn’t been able to transcribe audio while she was abroad.

“If you’re going to do something like this, just know it’s going to take a lot of time,” Hoban said.

“I basically worked for the last four Sundays and was at the office late three to four nights a week as the series was running.”

Speaking of late nights, Hoban said that while she’s not normally a fan of pharmaceuticals, she highly recommends Ambien or a similar sleep aid for a trip like hers, in which journalists need to sleep on the plane, beat jet lag and be ready to report immediately.