Patricia Okoed
3 July 2004
Kampala — Walking through Radio France was like walking through MTN's telephone exchange in Mbuya. The wires neatly tucked away but evidently there, leading to a maze of machines.
It was either my over-blown ego or determination to prove a point that led me into one of the studios requesting to do my thing. My wish was granted. I made my way into the studio at exactly 12:45 noon to get a feel of the microphone as I readied myself for the English news bulletin.
That was when I felt the first hints of perspiration starting to trickle. The arrangement of the whole set appeared beyond comprehension.
The next five minutes seemed eternity. By the end of the bulletin it was all good and I had used just the mic and clock. It goes to show that perceptions of radio abroad are more grandeur than actuality.
Doubling as a presenter at a local radio as well as foreign-based station made me curious to find out what makes radio abroad so different. Radio France is government owned and is ran entirely on government revenue, in other words it is our own Radio Uganda.
Radio France is not the Radio France International we pick on our FM band here, RFI is run as a completely different entity. At the time I was at the station, there was a lot of anxiety in the air. President, Jacques was about to announce a new president for the radio.
My interest was not in the bureaucracy involved, but how things are done on air. My first stop was at the 'Capital Gang' of Radio France.
The day I was in the studio, this gang was ripping apart an American journalist like he was the one who carried out the torturing at the infamous al-Ghraib prison. Poor guy had a translator but I could tell he was quite comfortable with his French, he used each translation break to think of something smart to answer but was caught out when he laughed before the translation was made!
My burning desire was to meet the presenters who make it to the French tabloids and gossip columns, until I was assured that there were none. The French unlike us Ugandans do not bestow a 'thou art holy' status upon radio personalities. The most popular figure is 'Kabushenga' (sorry but I can't remember his name). The programme director for City Radio for the youth said Paris let alone France is a huge community that nobody would really care about who you are anyway. In fact the DJs change so regularly that there is no time to build hype round any of them.
By the time of my visit, the spring shift was packing its bags for one year, before the summer guys arrived. Once, a summer presenter filled-in during winter and enraged the audience.
What would a visit to a radio station be without a visit to the newsroom? Their bulletins are predominantly foreign news, which is not surprising but what got to me was the meetings!
Every two hours the editor was calling a meeting for reporters. I caught at least two reporters nodding off once or twice, but who wasn't anyway? Their task is to communicate with their correspondents in Iraq, Afghanistan, Greece and the like, who form the bulk of the bulletins.
One thing I can say about the on-air broadcasts is that they flow.
It felt good listening to 30 minutes of solid music without someone interrupting me to tell me which phone network to sign onto or which detergent to use.
We are saved the misery of adverts simply because money to run the stations comes from the Frenchman's pocket.
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