The Daily Talk

Monrovia is an interesting place. As the capital of Liberia, it's the only non-US capital in the world named after a US president. Its biggest export is latex. It has no electricity distribution grid. It is the home port of approximately 15% of the global shipping fleet (giving it the second largest fleet in the world, behind Panama) despite the fact that almost none of those ships have ever been, or will ever be to Liberia. And, to top things off, its most widely read newspaper is a blackboard beside the highway.

The Daily Talk is an English-language news source run by Alfred J. Sirleaf on the side of Tubman Boulevard in Monrovia. Sirleaf started the board in an attempt to encourage a well-informed (and thus more democratically inclined) citizenry. Given the lack of daily print media, the Daily Talk is arguably the most important source of print news in the city, especially for the uneducated population that makes up the majority of Monrovia.



It's grassroots democracy in action, and you can be fairly sure the Daily Talk's voice is not being bought by corporate interests. He finances the entire thing on personal donations of cash and prepaid cellphone cards.



(details courtesy of the New York Times)