Redmond Shannon

Category: BLOG

  • Morocco with an iPhone

     

  • The invasion of Fredericton and journalistic licence

    A few weeks ago, I was working on a light story about why eerie flocks of seagulls have been circling over buildings, sometimes for hours on end. To give the story a voice, I needed regular people on the street to say they’d seen it too. (Depending on where you live in the anglophone world, these folks are known…

  • City improves security of bus passes

    In March 2014, I illustrated how easy it is to make a copy of the new 2014 Fredericton transit passes. The city has now decided to add holograms for 2015. 

  • JHR-trained journalist named Best Female Reporter at Sierra Leone National Media Awards

    In 2013, I worked as a journalism trainer in Sierra Leone. The four-month JHR program included a period at Radio Democracy in Freetown where I worked with three reporters including Mabel Kabba. In April 2014, Mabel was named Best Female Reporter at the 8th Annual National Media Awards. No surprise to me – given her abilities and…

  • New MLA legislation in New Brunswick

    Following the reports I filed on the expenses of New Brunswick MLA Greg Davis in March (including exclusive details of a party loan and how it remained secret), the province’s Legislative Assembly has introduced new legislation to ensure MLA expenses are reported more frequently and more transparently.

  • Canada’s New Measure of Success

    When it comes to Olympic gold medals, Canada knows how to make history. The world’s second largest country is the only nation to have failed to win a gold when hosting a Winter or Summer Olympics. It actually managed to do so twice; in Montreal 1976 and Calgary 1988. Then, four years ago in Vancouver,…

  • When zero was a magic number

    Like many broadsheet newspapers around the world, The Sunday Telegraph in the UK sees quite a diverse range of subjects discussed in its Letters to the Editor section. From events of global importance, to the most trivial of topics that only concern the smallest slivers of society. The latter was never truer than on February…

  • A story on every corner

    My first full-time gig as a reporter was a wonderful summer in a small city in eastern Canada. Fredericton is the capital of New Brunswick. It’s home to the provincial legislative assembly and two universities. The problem for news-gatherers is that those three institutions are effectively in hibernation for the summer months. Between May and…

  • A good walk spoiled

    Freetown Golf Club (FTG). Saturday, May 18th, 2:03 p.m. – I was finishing some interviews for a feature article about Sierra Leone’s only golf club, when I saw something remarkable for a golf course; people running. To read the full blog post, click here.

  • You lucky dog

      The goal of Journalists for Human Rights is to make everyone in the world fully aware of their rights. We do this through facilitating good human rights journalism, primarily in developing nations. It’s sometimes hard for visiting trainers like myself not to feel like we should be doing more than just this. When we…

  • Digging up the future

    In Hollywood “romcom” movies, you’ll sometimes see the male lead whisk away his lady in a blindfold for a surprise holiday. When they arrive, he removes her blindfold and she gushes in delight. Maybe that was an episode of The Bachelor, but I think you know what I’m talking about. For the rest of this blog click…

  • The life and death of 110-408

    Sherbro Island Airport (BTE) just outside the town of Bonthe hasn’t seen any fixed-wing aircraft land or take-off for around 11 years. The runway has long since lost its battle with Mother Nature. It’s now so overgrown, it would actually be safer to land a plane on the grass beside the runway. The site is…

  • A deafening silence

    Bonthe is like nowhere else I’ve ever been. It has no cars, no real roads, and just a few motorbikes. It is like stepping back in time. Crumbling colonial buildings line the town’s shore, looking across to the mainland. Behind them, are a mixture of mud houses, simple modern bungalows and metal shacks. For the most part,…

  • A closer look at Democracy

      For much of the past month I have been working with journalists at The Society for Radio Democracy 98.1fm in Freetown. Most people here refer to the station as simply “98.1”, but its name is a nod to its origin. The station was set up 16 years ago, in the middle of the civil…

  • In the field, literally

    Just like in most countries, Easter is followed by a four-day week here in Sierra Leone. That normally equates to less being achieved, especially after a lazy holiday weekend. Normally. On Tuesday morning at 6 a.m., I headed for Bombali District with two journalists from Radio Democracy in Freetown – Mabel Kabba and Fatima Sesay. We were joined…

  • A Good Friday lesson

    I started my Good Friday with an early trip to Lumley Beach in Freetown. I ran a wavy line along the soft, white sand, dodging the waves as they lapped up to my feet. Then I cooled-down with a quick swim in the Atlantic. There was no one else in the sea for maybe two…

  • Foreign Export

    There’s an old joke about my much-maligned hometown of Limerick. A Limerickman is on holidays in the United States. A girl serving him at a diner notices his strong accent. She asks him where he is from. He tells her “Limerick.” She asks “what state is that in?” He replies “It’s in an awful state.”…

  • The patience of my job

    On Friday, I was helping one of the employees at Skyy Radio with writing and recording her voice track for a radio documentary. We were forced to delay its recording twice, because others needed access to Skyy’s only recording studio for more urgent matters. When we did finally get started, we were again interrupted. This…

  • All your money where your mouth is

    One of the many embarrassing moments in my life was at a supermarket checkout in Hamburg a few years back. A teenage girl finished scanning all my items, and then asked me where I was from. Weird, I thought. I answered “Ich bin von Irland.” She looked at me like I had zwei Kopfs. She…

  • Divided and United

    Every Saturday afternoon, the chaotic streets of Freetown, Sierra Leone get a little quieter, as English Premier League football draws thousands of young men to the city’s sports cinemas. These cinemas do not have wall-to-wall projection screens, Dolby Surround sound, or popcorn. These are humid, white-washed rooms, where the temperature inside can top 40 degrees.…

  • Home Again

    I follow Edwina Thomas through the tight alleys of Kroo Bay in Freetown. This is one of the city’s most deprived areas. Thousands of metal shacks, built beside open latrines. Mothers washing and cooking. Teenagers sitting around. Kids running, everywhere. For the rest of this blog, click here

  • Hey, Peteh Crouch!

    I nod to the guard as I walk through the gates of Mamba Point. This is a centre of affluence in Freetown. Located high-up on Signal Hill, it’s a hotel and bar where some ex-pats – many of whom work for mining companies or aid organizations – go for air conditioning and wireless Internet.  I just…