Last December I met the impressive Omoyele Sowore, founder of Nigerian online news site, Sahara Reporters. I was chairing an independent media panel in Brooklyn ahead of the World Social Forum in Dakar. Sowore was one of the panelists. Based in New York City, Sahara Reporters have broken a number of big stories, including events around the country’s former president Umaru Yar’Adua’s sudden passing in 2009. This profile by Al Jazeera English’s media criticsm program, “Listening Post,” reviews Sahara Reporters’ history and impact, but the reporter Yvonne Ndege also takes advantage of her position to settle scores over Sahara Reporters’ criticism of her reporting of attempts by the family and supporters of the then-unconscious, now deceased Nigerian President Umaru Yar Adua, to insist that he was in good heath and still able to govern the country.
