The little radio station that could—and did

Can a radio station transmit peace to a war-ravaged nation? Can it exert any influence at all if it is a Catholic radio station in a country where less than 5 percent of the population is Catholic?

It can if it's Radio Veritas, the communications arm of the Catholic Media Center in Monrovia, capitol of Liberia. The popular and highly regarded broadcasting outlet has been named "Radio Station of the Year" for several consecutive years by the Press Union of Liberia.

Among 15 or so Liberian stations, Radio Veritas has won awards for best journalist, best reporter, best radio program, best manager and best director by the Press Union and other institutions.

"We have established credibility," said Fr. Anthony Borwah, who directs the Catholic Media Center of the Monrovia archdiocese. At home and abroad Radio Veritas is regarded as being "highly professional and truthful" in its reporting of issues and events, the Liberian priest said.

The European Union rated the station--along with another--as the most neutral, objective and balanced for its coverage of the November 2005 elections that brought Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to power. During the campaign, Radio Veritas hosted numerous debates among 22 presidential contenders, broadcasting two hours of election news three times weekly. The shows proved so popular that several radio stations in Liberia carried them live.

The election of American-educated economist Johnson Sirleaf as Liberia's --and Africa's--first woman president kindled fresh hope after years of civil strife, insurgency and the plundering of the national economy by the country's corrupt leaders. Although the guns are mostly silent today and disarmament efforts are underway, "the war continues in the hearts and minds of many--in the sense that the traumas of war" still affect thousands of people, said Borwah.

The Liberian priest met with NCR last year while visiting the U.S. provincial headquarters of the Society of African Missions here. The society is marking its 150th anniversary as well as the centenary of Catholicism in Liberia.

Despite the new president's pledge to bring peace and end poverty in Liberia, armed robbery occurs almost every other day in Monrovia, Borwah said. "Insecurity, especially at night in this darkest country, is a disturbing reality."

Radio Veritas reports events as they unfold, "bad news along with the good. We carry programs on peace, justice and reconciliation."

Challenges

The station's fight to remain on the air in its early years paralleled the struggle of ordinary Liberians to stay alive during the 14-year brutal administration of former President Charles Taylor and his equally bloody predecessor Samuel Doe.

The enterprise began as Catholic Mission Community Radio Station in the 1980s. Cofounder Charlotte Phelps turned the station into a powerful voice for social justice and an effective medium for the free flow of information and ideas. But at a cost.

Phelps, a Liberian Catholic activist, had to resist government pressures to cease broadcasting, even while receiving death threats. She rallied a broadcasting team that stayed on the air during almost all of the civil war (1989-97). Her team included her brother, Fr. Abu Cole, a Society of African Missions priest and an electronics engineer who has worked at Vatican Radio.

Although rebel forces destroyed the station in 1996, it was rebuilt in 1997. Two years later Monrovia Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis, who cofounded the station with Phelps, donated the $30,000 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award he had received in Washington to the station. Francis won the prize for mediating an end to the civil war.

Today Phelps lives in East Orange, N.J., where she is a catechist and lector at her parish and an educator. Francis, who is recovering from a stroke, still prepares a reflection to begin and end each day's programming.

Radio Veritas broadcasts 18 hours a day, operating on an FM frequency (97.8) in Monrovia and its vicinities and on shortwave (6.090 MHz and 5.470 MHz) across Liberia and West Africa. Missionaries in the bush and rural villages find it a lifeline for news and views--even inspiration, Borwah said. It is also well received by people in neighboring Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Ghana, Mall and Senegal.

The station broadcasts in a dozen local languages plus French and English. Liberia is about 15 percent Christian, 35 percent Muslim and 50 percent traditional religions, but religion seems neither a requisite nor a bar to enjoying Radio Veritas programs.

An estimated 80 percent of Liberians tune in each week for news, daily Mass live, interviews or commentaries--especially for "Topical Issues," an award-winning call-in show, the priest said. The station employs a workforce of 45 men and women including journalists, administrators, janitors, security staff, drivers and consultants.

Because the station is nonprofit, "we often run into financial difficulties," Borwah said. The German charitable agencies Misereor and Missio, the Dutch government, Society of African Mission Fathers, and Liberian Christians have all been helpful in funding, he added.