Journalist of the month: Nuno Andrade Ferreira

Updated 8/27/2015 at 8:54 a.m.

Each month, IJNet features an international journalist who exemplifies the profession and has used the site to further his or her career. If you would like to be featured, email a short bio and a paragraph about how you have used IJNet here.

Journalist of the month Nuno Andrade Ferreira spent the first part of his career at home in Portugual, where he worked at RDS Rádio for eight years while collaborating with newspapers on the side. RDS gave him a chance to learn and grow into a professional journalist, Ferreira said.

The experience he gained at the Portuguese radio station allowed him to branch out. In 2008, Ferreira moved to Angola. There, he helped foster one of the country's first private television channels, TV Zimbo. Then, in late 2009, Ferreira left Angola for yet another country: Cape Verde, a small nation off the coast of Western Africa with a rich Creole-Portuguese culture.

In Cape Verde, Ferreira is an editor at Rádio Morabeza, where he manages around a dozen journalists, and the online services editor for Expresso das Ilhas, which is owned by the same media group as the radio station.

Using IJNet as a way to find training opportunities, Ferreira participated in two Thomson Reuters Foundation programs. He traveled to London for an editorial judgment course and Mozambique to enhance his financial and economic reporting. This year, Ferreira and Rádio Morabeza will participate in the foundation's Wealth of Nations initiative. (Wealth of Nations equips independent journalism outlets throughout Africa with knowledge and resources to investigate and expose financial exploitation across the continent.)

We talked to Ferreira about how Cape Verdeans find their news and how Rádio Morabeza sets itself apart from other outlets by reporting differently.

IJNet: Tell us about the state of news in Cape Verde. What are the news outlets people turn to, and how do they typically consume news?

Nuno Andrade Ferreira: In Cape Verde, the market is determined by a hegemonic public media organization (radio, news agency and television), which gets revenue from the state and from advertising. In a small and poor country with 500,000 inhabitants, this means that private operators deal with great difficulties, as they have to face this unfair competition. It's a daily battle for survival, but also a great challenge.

There are no formal restrictions on press freedom, but financial difficulties are an obstacle to a more active press.

In general, people don't have reading habits and so the four national newspapers (all weekly) have a small circulation. The consumption of news over the Internet has grown, but radio remains the first (and more reliable) source of information.

You say your team at Rádio Morabeza has a “new way of doing news.” What’s an example of a story you or your team has done that exemplifies journalism close to the people in context?

There are many examples. We always try to follow the short stories that allow us to see the big picture. We seek the cause and effect, even if the consequence is not visible. For example, the government built a dam in a rural area. That was the main story, but our approach was to talk with farmers of a small community that, because of the dam, no longer had access to their land.

As an editor managing different types of people, do you have any advice for other journalists interested in editing and management?

First, be deeply committed with ethics: Ethics are the basis of good journalism and in the near future, credibility will mark the difference between who "lives" and who "dies" in this job. Also, involve your team in the decision process: Make your colleagues feel that they are part of the project. Finally, follow the market as it changes everyday. Oh, and context. Care with context, please!

Main image courtesy of the journalist.