From the outside, it doesn’t look like much: a two-storey building with a logo in the dusty streets of Agadez in northern Niger.
\nBut there has been plenty happening inside the building at Air Info — an ambitious media outlet that has been breaking exclusives in the Sahara Desert.<\/p>\n

A vast, sparsely-populated region, northern Niger is plagued by drugs and weapons trafficking, migration and violence by armed groups.<\/p>\n

In 2002, Ibrahim Manzo Diallo, a young school teacher posted to the troubled region, was struck by the lack of media coverage.<\/p>\n

There was no outlet providing “news of the far north,” he told AFP.<\/p>\n

Using a newly-installed printing press in Agadez, Diallo launched a monthly publication, funding it from his meagre teaching salary.<\/p>\n

Today, Air Info has 13 full-time employees and in addition to the newspaper — whose rate of publication varies — boasts a popular website and Sahara FM, one of Agadez’s main radio stations bought in 2013.<\/p>\n

For those needing news on northern Niger, a crossroads between North and sub-Saharan Africa, Air Info is now the go-to source.<\/p>\n

“We no longer go looking for scoops, they come to us,” Diallo said with a smile.<\/p>\n

– Threats and jail –
\nOne of Air Info’s exclusives was video footage it published last year of two Italians being held hostage by Al-Qaeda jihadists, the first proof they were alive after several years in detention.<\/p>\n

An Italian television station offered to buy the footage, but Diallo refused.<\/p>\n

As always, everyone wanted to know his sources.<\/p>\n

“The only thing that protects us is honesty and seriousness,” he said.
\n“Our sources know that we will never reveal who is talking to us.”<\/p>\n

An early scoop came during the abduction of several French citizens in 2010. <\/p>\n

Air Info was “one of the very first” to get witnesses to talk, Diallo says, adding that the story “helped establish our credibility”.<\/p>\n

But behind the man with a broad smile, wearing a boubou robe and eating braised mutton on the windy terrace of his organisation’s headquarters, there is a journalist caught between the forces of national security and jihadist expansion.<\/p>\n

He said he “gets calls from everywhere” from “people ready to give us money to keep quiet about information.”<\/p>\n

He published the video about the Italian hostage without batting an eyelid. No one knows who gave it to him.<\/p>\n

But the freedom to publish predictably comes at a price — threats and sometimes jail.<\/p>\n

In 2007 Air Info was forced to close for three months and Diallo was imprisoned for four months after being accused of links to a rebellion by ethnic Tuaregs that was raging at the time.<\/p>\n

Diallo said it was because earlier that year Air Info published a story under the headline “Drama in Tizirzet” about the discovery of “civilians beheaded by those who were supposed to protect them”.<\/p>\n

“I was sure it was going to cost me dearly,” he said.<\/p>\n

But despite his time in prison — and that all copies of the newspaper were suspiciously bought up after only being on a sale a few hours — he said it remains the scoop he is most proud of.<\/p>\n

– ‘Hello Agadez!’ –
\nOn the floor below the paper’s newsroom, the sounds of Sahara FM echo as the presenters take turns in the single studio.<\/p>\n

The programming is lighter fare than the newspaper, favouring practical information for locals.
\nFor example, mayors call the station so it can warn people living near rivers about a coming flood, Diallo says.<\/p>\n

Every morning, Salah Safo presents his “Hello Agadez!” programme in the Hausa language for 350,000 listeners, according to the station’s figures.<\/p>\n

“People call in to make dedications to their friends, it’s a really popular show,” Safo said.<\/p>\n

After Safo is done, the next host takes over in the Tuareg language Tamashek, as the station moves through the many languages of the region.<\/p>\n

Air Info’s slender finances were hit by the Covid-19 pandemic but Diallo has his sights set on the future.<\/p>\n

“We are now thinking of going into television,” he said.<\/p>\n

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From the outside, it doesn’t look like much: a two-storey building with a logo in the dusty streets of Agadez in northern Niger. But there has been plenty happening inside the building at Air Info — an ambitious media outlet that has been breaking exclusives in the Sahara Desert. A vast, sparsely-populated region, northern Niger is plagued by drugs and weapons trafficking, migration and violence by armed groups. In 2002, Ibrahim Manzo Diallo, a young school teacher posted to the troubled region, was struck by the lack of media coverage. There was no outlet providing “news of the far north,” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n