iPhones, South Sudan & The Future of News and Television

 

This is Walter Kigali.

He is with the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees.

He was part of the training we just completed in Nairobi.

Like all the other UN people we trained, he works in some of the most difficult and dangerous places on earth.

In the shot above, Walter is shooting an assignment for us in the Kibera slums, just outside of Nairobi; using an iPhone.

This isn't a part of the world that most tourists who go to Kenya on Safari ever see.

Neither is it a part of the world that people who watch Discovery ever see either.

Most tourists would be terrified to go here.

But for Walter, this is nothing.

The day he finished his training with us, he headed for the Dadab Refugee Camp in South Sudan with his gear.

The day he finished his training, five of his associates were kidnapped outside of Dadab and taken to Somalia by Shebab Terrorists.

This is very very real.

These people work and live in places that correspondents from CNN or The BBC just never go - and maybe they shouldn't.  It's far too dangerous for tourist journalism.

The problem is, that then the rest of the world never gets to find out what is really going on.

The world gets to find out about Katie Holms and Tom Cruise and The Kardashians - but not much more.

Until now.

Until we begin to train people like Walter, and give them equipment and give them a platform to share their stories with the rest of the world.

Then, maybe Katie Holms and The Kardashians will be put in some kind of perspective.

Maybe.

But we are certainly going to try.