For the logistics available to the journalists in order to do their jobs, very different in Tokyo and Dakar, play a major part too. Quite often, journalists have to wait for the line to be freed. Together with radio and television, it is the only source for outside information available. In the office, only seven, run-down computers are available to the journalists and they often break down. No notebooks or pens are provided.
Transportation too is difficult.
Since Walfadjiri has only one car, it can happen that a journalist going out on a story first has to drop off several colleagues in different parts of the city before going on to his own destination. A lot of the time, journalists have to fall back on an unreliable public transportation system to get to the story. Quite different from Senegal, in Tokyo, it is order, hierarchy and a multitude of logistics that help Asahi Shimbun's journalists to get to the story, wherever it may be and, more importantly, to get their first. When a journalist is sent out on a story, and he has received the written authorization of his immediate chief, he only has to go down to the basement of the head office, where a fleet of 135 limousines and drivers is waiting for him. On a really big story, he might chose to go to the roof instead and board one of the five helicopters owned by the newspaper, or take a limousine to the airport, where one of Asahi Shimbun's two jet-planes will be waiting for him.