Reflection

By Timothy Stephen Gabb (Photojournalism) and Raessa Begum Rehman (Radio)

Our group was given wards seven and eight within which to carry out our JDD CMP coursework and media production. Ward seven is the greater Joza area, an area of the township which has the best infrastructure in comparison to the rest. Ward eight, on the other hand, is comprised of Vukani (an area rife with crime and disintegrating RDP houses) and Luvuyo (the oldest township in Grahamstown), with very poor infrastructure.

We held our public meeting in Luvuyo Hall, precisely because it lacks the infrastructure and attention that Joza receives (Joza’s Noluthando Hall is a popular community centre which often hosts members from other communities who join in the deliberations). The meeting went well, with over 30 people joining. We decided to have a deliberation with as many members of the community as possible for our first meeting, so as to try and initially gauge the environment within which we were to conduct our work, and to also try and extract some of the collective qualms as expressed by the “community” themselves. This may seem like Haas’ (2007) communitarian democratic framework which assumes that the public represents a united body of citizens who share a collective understanding of a universal for “common good” (Haas 2007), for they all mostly expressed concern for a common good, but each had a different interest and a different perspective, and we had to thus encourage each voice to be heard with equal respect. This resulted, to an extent, in a deliberating public, where we could position ourselves on the perimeter, to sustain an open-ended, unbounded space where all citizens could express their views and opinions. We feel that this was greatly achieved, as various opinions were expressed; some, about the appalling conditions in which the community lives and others about our being there.

Before the actual meeting began, we were affronted by a member of the ANCYL, who expressed his discontent with us, students, being there, as past experiences have led him to believe that our project is of a purely instrumental nature, where we are only truly concerned with the bettering of our grades. Whilst, within the meeting, many citizens expressed their disgust with the overall ineffectiveness of the ward councillors and other governmental officials placed in charge of their ward. This juxtaposition of perspective revealed that, even in the presence of the ANCYL member, as well as a community development officer, the citizens had no reservations in expressing their heartfelt grievances and distrust due to the conditions under which they are forced to live. This either shows that they were unaware of the presence of the “officials”, or it shows that the conditions are so severe that they needed these “officials” to hear them - again. Either way, it disproved our one initial concern: that by civilians expressing their grievances in the presence of ruling officials, they would be seen in an anti-comradeship and partisan light, and would thereby risk speaking their mind to avoid being othered or ostracised by the community itself.

Born out of this communal deliberation, our group decided from the beginning to try and aim our productions toward something viable and possible. We thus decided to orientate ourselves around the notion of youth, and the conditions they live under. This is how our idea of hosting a soccer tournament came about - we knew we could not change their houses or their electricity problems, but we could try and reach out to the children.

We, as a pair, decided to do our story on a potential internet café starting up in Joza - it’s to be the first of its kind. Initially, our story was based on a broader subject, using the very technologically equipped Fingo Library, which borders ward eight, to juxtapose the lack of facilities everywhere else throughout the township. This quickly transmuted into a story based on Vuyolwethu Nekile, whose organisation, Life Goes On, was behind the vision of the internet café. His story is phenomenal, as he is an ex-offender, and is trying to support other ex-prisoners by way of rehabilitating them so that they are able to go out and get jobs and reach out to the community. Vuyo’s idea of the internet café was a way of training people of all ages to gain computer literacy skills so as to expose them to better job opportunities and access to information.

We decided that our audience should be potential sponsors of IT equipment. We aimed to create a production that Vuyo could take with him to potential sponsors and businesses that could help his cause. Thus our journalism was definitely one of an alternative nature. We were purposely not objective: we aimed at an affective narrative, which would capture the emotional faculties of our audience.

To place our journalism within a framework as suggested by Christians et al. (2009), we seem to be a mixture of facilitative and radical. The facilitative role is the role of the media as a fourth estate in a democratic state, which supports debate and guides citizens’ decision-making processes. In this sector, the media is seen as essential to a democratic state, and aims at improving the public’s lives. This role requires the media to “develop a shared moral framework for community and society, rather than just looking after individual rights and interests” (Christians et al. 2009:126). Thus, by helping Vuyo’s organisation, we would be helping getting information technologies available to the youth (as well as all sectors of the community).

The radical role, on the other hand, focuses on “exposing abuses of power and aims to raise popular consciousness of wrongdoing, inequality, and the potential for change” (Christians et al. 2009:126). We were autonomous in our approach, and had only one agenda: to help Vuyo. Our approach could be viewed as radical because we exposed the municipality’s lack of help for Vuyo. He had told us that he had applied for a municipal office space in Joza, to only have the municipality tell him that the office spaces were all full and in use. We went with Vuyo one day to go and see these spaces, and were shocked to discover that the majority of the offices were filled with rubbish and old pieces of wood. The passages had little rooms off them that were piled a meter high with rubbish. This revelation shows that the municipality had lied to Vuyo, and were indifferent to his cause.

According to Christians et al (2009), the basic tasks of journalism in democracy include “observing” and “informing” as a service to the public, participating in public life as an independent actor and providing a platform for extramedia voices. We met with Vuyo more than once where he showed us the offices at the municipality buildings. We were able to engage in his hardship of trying to be recognised by the municipality and we were able to see, on a first hand basis, how he was being ignored. Haas (2007) believes that journalists are to become “active partners” of citizens in the news-making process. We feel that we went beyond just becoming active partners of citizens in the news-making process, but that we could participate in the striving towards exposing injustice. This is also the reason why our approach cannot be said to be collaborative. When trying to meet with the municipality in a focus group situation at the Public Library in Grahamstown, they would not listen to us, nor view our media productions.

Our first audience focus group was held at the Rhodes IT department. We showed them our sound-slide, and asked them some questions. Their response was more than what we could have hoped for. They told us that they could probably help Vuyo out with computers, printers, and network cabling. On our leaving their office, Nimo Patterson, manager of Rhodes University IT Department, said: “Thank you for doing something good, and for making us see how little we are actually doing!” This form of media production, this framework of public, radical, and facilitative journalism made this potential sponsorship to Vuyo possible. Mainstream media would view our project as some form of biased advertising - but another framework quickly reveals that we have aided democracy, uncovered ineffective municipal management, and tried to bring ICT’s to those who really need them.

The ideas raised in this course have altered us by revealing the way the majority of our country lives. To be made to enter the township context, and to have personal interactions with the communities, as well as having to listen to their stories, has broadened our empathetic imagination, as well as harnessed a sharpened sensitivity faculty. Since it could have been the first time many students have actually entered the township, it has forced them to reconsider their position within the greater structures of society. According to the World Bank’s statistics, about 3 billion people live below the poverty line; 50 000 people die a day, and 18 million a year due to poverty related (yet avoidable) causes. We live in Africa, the poorest continent in the world. It is our duty as journalists and empathetic beings to have compassion and do what is in our power to help this astronomically high figure. We feel that not only with the organization of the soccer tournament, but with this constant interaction with Grahamstown communities, we were able to open our minds and hearts to help people who needed to be heard. The structure of this course afforded us the opportunity to do so as well as allowed us to fulfil the aims we set out to achieve from the outset.