Francis Lungu, an editor for a Zambian current events show, and before that a reporter at a daily paper, knows the frustrations that come with deadline journalism. There was the time, recently, that a source tried to get him breaking news in time for the noon report of his show. But the Internet wasn't working. When that happens he runs out to the Internet cafe nearby. But this time, while he scrambled to get the data needed for the story, he got scooped.

He also recalls the time, back in his print days, when he got an offer to join a trip out of town that would have yielded a great story -- except the phone lines weren't working that day, as they often weren't, and he found out after the train, so to speak, had left the station.

Lungu told me this during an interview exercise we were doing during a three-day workshop we were both attending -- him as a participant, me as a facilitator. This was in answer to my question: "what are some of the challenges to journalism here?"

You can get an answer to that question in any city in the world.

Back home, by last summer the answer would have been: "hanging on to one's job"