Re-integration of LBS Digital Archives and Private Viewing: JRG Meets LBS Director and 80s Media Icons

When the Junior Research Group set out to collaborate with the Liberia Broadcasting System (LBS) to digitize the surviving U-Matic tapes of their 80s broadcasting content, one of the end goals was to facilitate a re-integration of this rich resource of Liberian history back into Liberian society. On 13th February 2025, the JRG had its first meeting with the LBS Director General, Eugene Fahngon. The Director General, whose prior communications with the JRG had been through emails with the leader Dr. Cassandra Mark-Thiesen, warmly received the team in his office at the LBS facility in Paynesville, Monrovia. After brief introductions and conversations about the archiving work done, Mr. Fahngon was treated to a preview of the digital archives.

The Director General, who communicated his intention to transform the state media organ through innovative approaches including bridging existing generational gaps among media producers, was thrilled about the work done and the resource now made available in digital format. External hard drives containing the digitzed tapes were handed over to Mr. Fahngon, who shared his desire and strategies to ensure that present-day media professionals could refer to media professionals from earlier days in a mutually beneficial learning exchange. He shared his excitement in seeing Liberia's history communicated, documented, preserved, and re-enacted through this digital archive. The hallmark of this meeting, however, was the scheduling of a private viewing session with the media professionals - women and men who worked (as presenters, producers, and support staff) in LBS in the 80s, most of whom feature on the tapes.

In keeping with this, a private viewing was held on 17th February, at the conference room of the LBS in Paynesville, Monrovia. On short notice, the Director General with the help of Mrs. Hawa Andrews Collins, one of Liberia's renowned television producers and presenters, brought together some media professionals who worked in Liberian television in the 80s. The viewing and interaction, which was live-streamed on the LBS's digital platforms, and viewed nationally and internationally, was attended by 70s and 80s television presenters and producers such as Mildred Dean, Fannie Cole Weefur, Korkulor Flomo, and Hawa Andrews Collins. Some current media professionals were also in attendance and had the chance to meet and converse with these earlier broadcasters and producers. An hour-long video curated from the archives was shown and was met with nostalgic reactions from those in attendance. While earlier media practitioners used these digital products to recall Liberian past and their contributions to nation-building, others were thrilled to trace the media's (and the nation's) development across time.

This remarkable exchange ended with a tour around the LBS' current facilities, including the site of ongoing construction of additional ultramodern facilities. At the end of the tour, the Director General treated the research group and guests to lunch, where there were further social interactions and conversations around individual experiences of Liberia's past, present, and the imagined future. Questions of continuity and furtherance were deliberated on as the director pondered the possibility for future collaborations and the further digitization of other yet-to-be-digitized U-Matic tapes discovered in the LBS' storage. This was a mutually rewarding experience, and especially so for the JRG whose efforts towards the reintegration of these cultural goods could be considered a success. The digitized archives of 80s Liberian television is a collection of Liberia's history and heritage produced by Liberians, and can be read broadly as a compendium of African self-representation. Altogether, the archive holds more than 100 hours of television broadcast content across various genres produced between 1980 and 1991.