Today I sent out emails to people that are doing amazing work, who don’t know anything about me, asking them to trust Steve and I to come write about their work.
As a journalist I email and call people I don’t know asking things of them at least half a dozen times a day but I never feel the fear I felt sending out those emails.
This website won’t work if we don’t find amazing people to write about. We need them to trust us and believe in what we’re doing – hence the fear.
Which brings me to my next point, I think it’s worthwhile explaining, in a little more detail, exactly what we’re doing.
One of my best friends, a woman whose intellect and sensibilities I respect enormously, who has spent the last couple of years living and working in Papua New Guinea warned me the other day that we will not only find inspiration in our journey. She said: “you might be shocked, appalled and bemused as you travel as much as you will be inspired”.
Of course I know this is true, and as journalists there is no way that we would shy away from reporting these events, in particular through this blog section of the website.
But the main thrust of the website will be about good news stories. We want to reverse the traditional news values of death and destruction which dominate the headlines that come out of Africa. We want to seek out inspirational stories and see if we can prove that these types of stories are equally interesting and important to report upon through finding an audience of readers willing to follow us on this journey.
