By Frank Hermus and Kezia Swanepoel
In relation to Haas’s public philosophy for public journalism, we believe we accomplished to the best of our abilities what was required for public deliberation. In my opinion, we succeeded in what, according to Haas (2007:29), should be central to public journalism – “journalists should help create and sustain an open-ended, unbounded public sphere to which all citizens have access and in which all topics of concern to citizens and all opinions available can be articulated, deliberated, and critiqued”. By organizing a public meeting to which the entire community was invited, we created a public space where ordinary citizens could voice their opinions and concerns regarding their community, and the problems they face within their daily lives. Hence, we had created a place where a “citizen’s agenda” could be formulated, and we could have “citizens as active partners” in the news-making process. Haas (2007:30) states that “journalists should be committed to hearing out all citizens and providing a forum through which citizens can hear each other out and evaluate conflicting, if not competing, values and interest claims.” We did this by hosting a public meeting within the community where issues affecting the community at a hyper-local level were raised and taken into account.
In terms of the specialized pairs of writers and designers, we had created a wallpaper to be put up in very central locations around the community. These were places like spaza shops, taverns, public libraries and community halls. These places were ideal to set up mini-forums of citizens to discuss the litter management issue we had gleaned from the town hall meeting. The writers produced the news stories for the wallpaper, and the designers created the wallpaper incorporating the news stories. The centre of the wallpaper held a large photograph of a little girl playing in trash, highlighting the concern for more activities for children as well as proper waste management. People were extremely interested as we put up the wallpaper and it caused many people to gather around it and talk amongst themselves about it. When displaying the wallpaper to a local man, he was very excited to point out to that his friend’s house/shack can be seen in the background of the large photograph. This did not seem particularly important to me at first, but then the importance became apparent. The man was filled with such excitement when notifying something he recognized about the wall in the background due to the fact that the community has been so neglected for so long. This man was thrilled to be witnessing some attention being placed on his township and community. Other people were also pointing at things they recognised and children they knew that were in the photos. The people could see that their issues had been put into a formal part of media and they were free to discuss it.
The designers created a poster which advertised the soccer tournament which was to be held and it also displayed on the original wallpaper. This put forward another issue raised at the town hall meeting: the lack of recreational activities for the youth. The soccer day was a great success. This was an ideal method for gathering and unifying the community through public journalism. We identified their issue as news and also managed to solve it in some way. The public responded well as the attendance to the soccer day exceeded all our group’s expectations.
In terms of what was either ‘lost’ or ‘gained’ by using public journalism methods, we firmly believe that more was gained than lost. We were able to gain some measure of trust and respect from the community, especially after the successful soccer day and the discussions that followed display of the wallpaper. This was trust we truly had to work for as at first the community assumed that we would simply milk them for story ideas, obtain our marks and move on – “taking and forgetting” as one man mentioned in the community meeting. However, it can safely be said that a connection has been established between our group and the community. There has been a creation of a new deliberating public that has the power to set their own news agendas once they have been given the time to be listened to by journalists. The only loss we see is that the local governments have not been getting as involved as they should. Media can only do so much and that is a worry. However the efforts put forward by the designers and writers have been positive and inspiring. They have been able to create a great wallpaper that encourages public debate, public opinion and the essence of being a community that does things together.
This course has been very different as we normally work on our own. Any group is diverse and their own stories and opinions were individual. Somehow we managed to fit them into the criteria of public journalism. Ideas raised involved the retelling of the history behind the wards and their soccer heydays, profiling a woman who runs a children’s care centre from her own home and a look into the dismal youth recreational facilities. These ideas came from the new “civic journalist” identities we had to adopt. Adapting to Haas’s theory and ideas, our own ideas of civic journalism sought to breathe new life into a once-neglected community through different forms of media.
These ideas have differed a lot from the stories we normally produce. They have been human interest and community interest stories at an intimate level. This kind of journalism has enabled us to not just “go out and get the stories” but to build social capital within a neglected community. We have been working in the field amongst sombre conditions and this has made us more effective in getting the stories we want while being able to empathise with the community. Civic journalist identities require more sensitivity towards such emotional stories as these dire conditions are the people of Ward 7 and 8’s realities. This has only improved the group as we have learned to use our journalistic skills for the betterment of the community. One idea that the group participated in together was the soccer day to provide a solution to the earlier issues raised about the lack of soccer teams and of recreational activities for the youth. This fulfilled a main objective set out by the group. We did not just want to get our stories and leave but to nurture the public sphere with them. By being more involving the community in and through media, they have been able to voice opinions. The soccer day provided us with an opportunity to follow through with the opinions raised by the town meeting.
The main change in our identities as young journalists has also been in the way we put together and produce media. Now, we must think of the news the community has raised and think more about what is affecting them. The new ideas of creating a deliberating public and engaging the public to give them a voice was daunting at first. Now it has become a new kind of journalism we are adapting to. The group has found it challenging but worthwhile. The ideas raised have produced good work that has fulfilled the objectives of bettering a community, even if it is in a small way. As student journalists, we have looked at many different ways of reporting and gathering information. This new form of public journalism has definitely been different but extremely worthwhile and has completed our identities as journalists working in such an unequal society. We have realised it is not enough to just report, the alternative is public journalism.
Opening the door to change
Friday, October 8, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
CMP Reflection
By: Khatija Nxedlana and Catherine Deiner
The Journalism, Development and Democracy (JDD) course with a strong emphasis on Tanni Haas’s theory of public journalism created an introduction to the task we would be tackling for the second-half of the year. Moving away from mainstream forms of journalism which are typically top-down in structure, favouring the views of a minority elite group instead of the majority of ordinary citizens. The traditional form of journalism sees the journalists as the professionals, the watchdogs over the submissive television viewers, radio listeners and newspaper readers who are passive consumers of the media product. Instead, journalists should strive to encourage participation from citizens; they should act as observers immersing themselves into a community to find issues of concern to the people. Journalists should include or give control to ordinary people in the setting of a public agenda or philosophy. Journalists should only step in if the agenda set by the public is undemocratic.
We set out to achieve community involvement in journalism. This was done in order for ordinary members of the community to be active instead of passive decision makers in the field of journalism. The sound-slide we (Catherine and Khatija) produced falls in line with the aims of development journalism. We, as a larger group, went out into Ward 8 and held a public meeting to hear the concerns of the community. A recurring theme was one of emptiness and the lack of resources for the youth. We therefore set out to address this concern and from the beginning of the process we wanted to ensure that we contributed to the community and didn’t exploit the people living in the wards assigned to us. This was especially important to us. Through a combination of audio and images we focused on a local artist in the ward, Thembelani Fene who makes shoes to survive. The entire piece was in English aimed at our audience, being the council and the Centre for Social Development. Fene makes use of off-cuts and scrap materials, some of which he gets from the one shop he sells his goods to: Under The Arch. Fene’s craft is an indication of a member of the community finding ways to help himself. Not to say that he doesn’t need assistance from the council or social development but he has chosen not to sit around doing nothing which is what development journalism is all about, the community helping themselves. Fene is an active member of Ward 8 and he was one of our connectors and catalyst in organising the soccer tournament that we hosted as a group.
What we noticed was that, those with the capacity to help out in the community, such as municipal workers, do not. Our audience for Thembelani’s story was the member from Social Development from ward 8, the Ward Councillor, councillors from the Cacadu Grahamstown Department of Arts and Culture and a member from the Unemployment People’s Movement. All proved very difficult to get a hold of which forced us to make slight changes to our project. Generally, people were reluctant to speak which made it difficult in getting feedback for the piece and for helping Thembelani develop his skill as a craftsman as we had hoped to do. The experts we were to use in our story were not to detract from the development angel but rather to seek assistance from them so as to help a struggling member of the community.
From our first group meeting, we had unanimously decided that, should a theme come up in which we could show the community that they can come up with a solution to their own problems, we would facilitate this. As one of the recurring topics raised at our public meeting was that the youth have no recreational activities; our group as a whole organised a soccer tournament between wards seven and eight, for the children. This took place on the morning of Saturday, the 2nd October. We feel that hosting this soccer tournament went a huge way in showing the community that we were not there to exploit them but rather to facilitate communication between them to find solutions. It was a huge success. We got very positive feedback from this event. More than 100 children participated in the event and their responses at smaller focus groups held on the day gave all of us a fuzzy feeling. We think that this event made the sceptics of public journalism realise the benefits from this process.
This was to show community members and journalism students that journalists can interact and engage with the community. To fight the stereotype that journalists are far removed and only strive for objectivity, as professional outsiders, valuing expert opinions, looking in on the helpless ordinary people. It was a grass-roots initiative, organised by the members of wards seven and eight, Fene being instrumental in organising teams from Ward 8. Our role was to ensure the smooth running of the event, organise sponsors for gifts to give to the winning teams as well as food for the teams in hopes that the wards would continue a new tradition of Soccer Saturdays. In this way we were independent from commercial, governmental and other editorial movements. We only gained through this process. We helped the community to realise that although there are problems within their wards which they cannot solve without help from political-economic groups, there are community-based solutions to certain issues. It is hoped that the communities will advance this citizen-generated solution to one of the problems in the wards.
What we have learnt from this is a realisation of a quote from first year, “Everyone has a story”. All the concepts we learnt in the JDD part of the course have been actualised through the various mediums. By providing an open platform for citizens to communicate, they too need to share their individual opinions as well as allowing others the opportunity to do so, also known as “ideal role-taking” as said by Habermas. This very much falls in line with two of the normative theories proposed by Christians of the media’s role in a democracy. These are the Collaborative role and the Facilitative role.
As a big group we had to ensure that all our work constantly followed the same theme so as to keep the consistency we had spoken about in the beginning of the process. We checked each other’s work, critiqued each other and gave constructive criticism.
The Journalism, Development and Democracy (JDD) course with a strong emphasis on Tanni Haas’s theory of public journalism created an introduction to the task we would be tackling for the second-half of the year. Moving away from mainstream forms of journalism which are typically top-down in structure, favouring the views of a minority elite group instead of the majority of ordinary citizens. The traditional form of journalism sees the journalists as the professionals, the watchdogs over the submissive television viewers, radio listeners and newspaper readers who are passive consumers of the media product. Instead, journalists should strive to encourage participation from citizens; they should act as observers immersing themselves into a community to find issues of concern to the people. Journalists should include or give control to ordinary people in the setting of a public agenda or philosophy. Journalists should only step in if the agenda set by the public is undemocratic.
We set out to achieve community involvement in journalism. This was done in order for ordinary members of the community to be active instead of passive decision makers in the field of journalism. The sound-slide we (Catherine and Khatija) produced falls in line with the aims of development journalism. We, as a larger group, went out into Ward 8 and held a public meeting to hear the concerns of the community. A recurring theme was one of emptiness and the lack of resources for the youth. We therefore set out to address this concern and from the beginning of the process we wanted to ensure that we contributed to the community and didn’t exploit the people living in the wards assigned to us. This was especially important to us. Through a combination of audio and images we focused on a local artist in the ward, Thembelani Fene who makes shoes to survive. The entire piece was in English aimed at our audience, being the council and the Centre for Social Development. Fene makes use of off-cuts and scrap materials, some of which he gets from the one shop he sells his goods to: Under The Arch. Fene’s craft is an indication of a member of the community finding ways to help himself. Not to say that he doesn’t need assistance from the council or social development but he has chosen not to sit around doing nothing which is what development journalism is all about, the community helping themselves. Fene is an active member of Ward 8 and he was one of our connectors and catalyst in organising the soccer tournament that we hosted as a group.
What we noticed was that, those with the capacity to help out in the community, such as municipal workers, do not. Our audience for Thembelani’s story was the member from Social Development from ward 8, the Ward Councillor, councillors from the Cacadu Grahamstown Department of Arts and Culture and a member from the Unemployment People’s Movement. All proved very difficult to get a hold of which forced us to make slight changes to our project. Generally, people were reluctant to speak which made it difficult in getting feedback for the piece and for helping Thembelani develop his skill as a craftsman as we had hoped to do. The experts we were to use in our story were not to detract from the development angel but rather to seek assistance from them so as to help a struggling member of the community.
From our first group meeting, we had unanimously decided that, should a theme come up in which we could show the community that they can come up with a solution to their own problems, we would facilitate this. As one of the recurring topics raised at our public meeting was that the youth have no recreational activities; our group as a whole organised a soccer tournament between wards seven and eight, for the children. This took place on the morning of Saturday, the 2nd October. We feel that hosting this soccer tournament went a huge way in showing the community that we were not there to exploit them but rather to facilitate communication between them to find solutions. It was a huge success. We got very positive feedback from this event. More than 100 children participated in the event and their responses at smaller focus groups held on the day gave all of us a fuzzy feeling. We think that this event made the sceptics of public journalism realise the benefits from this process.
This was to show community members and journalism students that journalists can interact and engage with the community. To fight the stereotype that journalists are far removed and only strive for objectivity, as professional outsiders, valuing expert opinions, looking in on the helpless ordinary people. It was a grass-roots initiative, organised by the members of wards seven and eight, Fene being instrumental in organising teams from Ward 8. Our role was to ensure the smooth running of the event, organise sponsors for gifts to give to the winning teams as well as food for the teams in hopes that the wards would continue a new tradition of Soccer Saturdays. In this way we were independent from commercial, governmental and other editorial movements. We only gained through this process. We helped the community to realise that although there are problems within their wards which they cannot solve without help from political-economic groups, there are community-based solutions to certain issues. It is hoped that the communities will advance this citizen-generated solution to one of the problems in the wards.
What we have learnt from this is a realisation of a quote from first year, “Everyone has a story”. All the concepts we learnt in the JDD part of the course have been actualised through the various mediums. By providing an open platform for citizens to communicate, they too need to share their individual opinions as well as allowing others the opportunity to do so, also known as “ideal role-taking” as said by Habermas. This very much falls in line with two of the normative theories proposed by Christians of the media’s role in a democracy. These are the Collaborative role and the Facilitative role.
As a big group we had to ensure that all our work constantly followed the same theme so as to keep the consistency we had spoken about in the beginning of the process. We checked each other’s work, critiqued each other and gave constructive criticism.
CMP Pair Evaluation
By Divia and Divania
Haas’s public philosophy for public journalism involves giving the public a platform for deliberation. He states that journalists should provide opportunities for the public to bring to the fore their grievances thus setting their own news agenda. In light of this news agenda journalists will report on the concerns of the public and allow a space for citizens to deliberate and come up with goals and problem-solving strategies in order to overcome these issues.
In light of this our group held a public meeting in ward eight to allow the public the opportunity to speak about the problems in the area. One issue that was prominent was that of the children in the area and the fact that they did not have any recreational facilities available to them. As a result the children play in the rubbish dump which is extremely unhygienic and dangerous. Our WEPD team decided to focus on this issue by designing a wallpaper which included in it stories on the waste problem in both our wards, i.e. ward seven and eight, as well as a profile on the ward councillor of ward seven who spoke of a clean-up project.
Seeing as the wallpaper involved children, designers used bold colours as a background, a tint of blue to be precise, with black being used for the body text. Circular fact boxes were introduced in bright red and green with a drop shadow and outer glow effect in order for them to stand out on the page. The nameplate was designed using a shade of yellow with the same effects as the fact boxes. The headlines of both stories where placed at a 90 degree angle on the side of each story in a tint of orange with a black stroke so as to prevent the headlines from being lost in the background. Our main feature was in the form of images. The main image was of a little girl standing in the rubbish heap. This again was done using drop shadow and outer glow effects. Along the bottom of the page were a reel of pictures of children from both the wards and the area they live in.
Although we were quite pleased with the outcome of the wallpaper the feedback we received from Casper, Rod and Gill required us to “tweak” our design by changing the background colour and body text colour to allow for easy reading. The placement of the headlines was also illegible and we were asked to place them above the text. Although the pictures were relevant their placing needed to be adjusted so as to better fit the stories. A photograph of the ward councillor was also required.
Before the meeting was held, all groups had to visit our wards and create civic maps of the areas. For writers, this was done through numerous interviews with people on the ground. Thus, a feel for the connectors, catalysts and important meeting places was established. During the public meeting, we recorded the key grievances in the community. This relates to Haas’s view as he believes that public journalism should be embedded in the idea of the deliberating public. This means that citizens want to engage in common deliberation, and are active participants in processes of democracy. It is necessary for journalists to assist in the creation of an open-ended, unbounded public sphere to which all citizens have access. This was done during our public meeting by having the meeting in a well-known hall. Anyone from the community could attend. Here, topics of concern to all citizens were articulated, deliberated and critiqued. A public sphere should consist of various discursive areas and members of different social groups. In this sphere, they would be able to discuss their concerns. By doing this, subordinate social groups are able to be involved in public deliberation.
The first outputs we produced were wall newspapers and accompanying pamphlets. These were to be distributed in the communities. There were two main stories on the wallpaper. The first was a story on the appalling litter conditions in both wards. There are many illegal dumping sites which children use as play areas. This is unsanitary for them. After speaking to members of the community and the municipality, it was established that many people living in wards seven and eight are responsible for the mess. This story was criticised as it did not provide any solutions to the problem, so it was as though we were telling the community members things they already know.
The second story was about the ward seven Councillor, Nomhle Gaga. She gave us information about parks and play centres that were going to be set up for children, thus providing them with activities during the day. She also mentioned a clean-up campaign that she was establishing in her ward. This story was criticised as we did not provide enough information about the campaign, so this will be done for the next output.
We do not think that anything was lost by using public journalism. By immersing ourselves in the community and engaging with the citizens, we were able to understand their conditions much better and therefore produce media that related directly to them.
In terms of our identity, Haas’s public philosophy, in particular, affects us as it is vital to consider the public’s role in journalism. We have been inspired to form our journalistic identities based on his principles, as he stands for something that promotes national well-being and democracy. The Journalism, Development and Democracy and Critical Media Production courses are based on the citizens of Grahamstown. We now see the importance of providing the public with a useful forum where they can discuss their issues and decide for themselves what is important. They therefore set the news agenda. This means that, as journalists, we work with the people instead of merely providing them with information that may not be relevant to them. Haas believes that problem-solving is an integral part of journalism. Our goal is to help the community find sustainable solutions to their problems.
Our identities have been affected in that we now see the value of alternative forms of journalism, as opposed to the mainstream media. This has been illustrated by the response to our wall newspapers. This showed that even small outputs create a great impact in these communities. Community members complained that Journalism students merely use them for stories and then never go back. Our group is trying to change this perception by giving back to the community in the form of these outputs, and we have received the response that we hoped for.
Our groups split into our specialisations, and because we were focussing on both wards, we did not need to split further. The Television students worked on doccies, the Photojourn and Radio students worked together on sound slides and the WEPD students worked together on the wall newspaper. Stories were proofread within specialisations.
As a team of Journalism students, we had assumed that we would be performing the collaborative role. During times of war or other crises, collaboration between the media and the state is encouraged. Collaboration should meet the needs of both the state and the media, in that the media have the resources to produce the news. However, the relationship is not mutually beneficial because the government has the ability to control the supply of news.
Development is a vital, multifaceted and dialectic process that is varied in different societies. Development journalism involves the concept of nation building. This means that ideas of promoting national consciousness, patriotism and co-operation are fundamental. The media therefore serves to help and encourage communities to empower themselves. The government, in this form of journalism, uses the media as a mediator to realise development objectives and to act as informers to the public about government policies. However, in practice, the relationship between the government and the media has a negative impact on society because of the controlling nature of the government.
The relationship between the collaborative role and the concept of development journalism will now be discussed. The collaborative role of journalism correlates with development journalism in that both involve interaction between the media and the state in order to promote nation building by reporting on positive development programmes and giving citizens a platform. NGOs and other organisations should be brought in to assist the media in furthering notions of development. However, the media should not be drawn into these organisations’ agendas. Often, the government and the media do not work harmoniously as the government has the power to impinge on the media’s role in informing the public.
In theory, these concepts would be useful in South Africa. After apartheid, there was a large amount of hostility between different societies and racial groups. These hostilities persist, 16 years after democracy. Therefore, the concepts are valid because they aim to encourage peaceful co-existence amongst different groups in South Africa. Pragmatically, however, the ideas may not work due to the fact that the government has such a strong hold on the freedom of the press. This is demonstrated by the recent notion to establish a media tribunal, which would limit what the press could say about the government.
In terms of the course, a relationship between the state and the media cannot really be spoken about because, in general, some members of the Makana municipality were very uncooperative in assisting us with perpetuating notions of sustainability and acting as mediators. Therefore, our group took initiative and hosted a soccer tournament, which promoted ideas of unity as members of the community took it upon themselves to organise teams. This created opportunities for people to uplift themselves and created a platform for sustainability.
The radical role also applies to us as student journalists within this course. The goal of this role is fundamental or radical change in society, by exposing the abuse of power. This role is less represented in broadcast journalism due to public regulation and commercial pressure. The role is fulfilled by any media production that can have a high impact on society. This role is similar to public journalism as it aims to improve the lives of the public by exposing them to wrongdoings within their community. Through this, the public could take it upon themselves to affect change. It differs from public journalism as it does not utilise the public’s opinion in creating an agenda and media.
Reflection
By Alex, Nasreen and Yvonne
As a WEPD group we were required to produce a wallpaper to cover the main issues or concerns and go beyond every day reporting in wards 7 and 8. The target audience was the youth, and through the distribution of the wallpapers we were aiming to create multiple discursive spaces mentioned by Haas in his public philosophy for public journalism. As a group we set out to create a wallpaper that exhibited important issues that the community had raised as seen in the process of setting up our citizens agenda. The main objective was to show the community that although we may not be able to resolve their issues, we can give them a platform on which to voice their issues and get them heard by those people in positions to make the necessary changes. A subsidiary objective was to attempt to give the citizens a sense of the good intentions of our group as budding journalists. That is to say, we wanted to demonstrate that we were not merely using them for story ideas but that were also genuinely concerned and intent on making whatever small difference within the limitations of our capabilities. In our particular case, focusing on the lack of recreational activities for the youth in Wards 7 and 8, our way of developing the community was helping to put together a soccer tournament for the children to participate in and be rewarded for.
In this process of production we attempted to work together with the citizens in constructing the citizens agenda which would then aid us in producing media which had a collaborative underpinning. As such this enhanced in a small way, the process of democracy as the citizens themselves were responsible for what was reported and how it was presented to them. This type of alternative journalism strayed from the norms of mainstream media as the news agenda was not set by the journalists but rather by the citizens of Grahamstown. In this respect, the approach to media production did not consist of the producers acting as the dominant contributor but rather as a mediator between those that need help and those that can give the help. Our approach to journalism attempted to ensure that something long lasting would come out of the coverage and exposure of the main stories by going beyond the confines of typical newspaper stories.
We began the production process by using civic mapping to get a feel of the wards and by acknowledging the complexity of the relationship between the media and the citizens. To begin with we carried out haphazard interviews with the residents of both wards, and using the information gathered we created a survey which asked questions such as what were the main issues in the ward, what their ward councillor was doing for them and the most suitable time for a community meeting. Having gained the relevant information, we began to market the community meeting using several mediums including posters, flyers, word of mouth and the local radio stations. During the meeting, we shared authority with the citizens in an open ended and unrestrained public sphere in which all the citizens had a platform to articulate their opinions and create the stage for deliberation. From this meeting we gained support from the community and valid insight into the private concerns of these individuals. However, there were a few individuals who felt resentment towards us as a result of past experience with Rhodes students who had taken part in this course, as they felt they had been used for story ideas and the students did nothing to back to the community and had given them false hope about having their issues resolved.
Writers report
As a writer many issues came up that were relevant to address and it was decided that the youth was going to be the main focus of our group work. We were designated to look at the issues and problems in both Ward 7 and Ward 8. When entering Ward 8 we noticed that children were playing outside in a huge rubbish dump as there were no other places where they could play. In both areas it was seen that there was a lack of resources for children such as community centres, fields and playgrounds.
As a writer I looked at the rubbish issue, as it was a health concern that children were playing in these unsanitary conditions. We interview the municipality questioning them about these illegal dump sites and their role in trying to solve the rubbish issues. It was seen that every person in the community received a black bag for their rubbish disposal yet often many of them did not use it and resorted to dumping their waste in a illegal waste container. The problem lies both with the municipality educating people about dumping their waste plus the community not taking responsibility for following dumping regulations.
The second story was interviewing the Ward 7 councillor as the Ward 8 councillor was apparently out of town at the time. The Ward 7 councillor said that there was a problem in her ward with regard to facilities as children often resort to getting involved with bad crowds and illegal activities. The problem is that there is also a lack of space in order to build centres for children. With regard to the rubbish issue seemed to be an overarching problems in her ward as well she was trying to create awareness by creating a ‘Keep Ward 7 clean’ campaign.
Personally, this experience has helped me grow as an individual as there was a constant interacting with the community who was in need of someone giving them a voice. I was often challenged as many people did not want to talk to journalists as they are often in fear of being criticized for their faults and lack of response to community needs.
Designers Report
After working closely with the writers and photographers we chose to design the wallpaper focusing particularly on the youth. In the wallpaper the coverage was led by the special interests of the citizens collaborating with journalists. We used bright colours and striking images along with bold text in order to attract the attention of our target audience. The use of fact boxes displayed important details such as the ward councillors’ details, clinics in the areas and rubbish collection days. The nameplate for the wallpaper was in Xhosa and the rest of the text was in English which may have been problematic considering the issue of language barriers in the areas we were covering. The design was mainly driven by the use of images depicting a lack of recreational activities in the areas and the things that children do to compensate for this fact. As designers it was important to look past the norms of newspaper design which the members of the community consider costly and expendable and rather concentrate on a tabloid design that incorporated magazine and newspaper styles.
The process of making the wallpaper influenced the way we saw ourselves as designers in the world of the media. In this course we were required to go out into the areas in order to completely understand the audience we were designing for. It allowed us to see past our roles as merely the people who put the contents together but also as influential in the media making process while collaborating and getting feedback from our consumers.
As Christians et al (2009: 127) outlines, the collaborative role sees the media and the state involved in a symbiotic relationship. Collaboration between the media and the state often takes place during times of emergency such as terrorism and natural disasters. Collaborating meets the needs of both parties recognising that media possesses an essential societal resource of public information and authorities often control the supply of news.
Development journalism allows journalists to recognise development as a valid goal. Journalists have an important role in nation building within society as they should promote and recognise national consciousness, tribal based, religious, racial and linguistic loyalties while encouraging co-operation and peaceful co-existence between diverse communities. In this regard, the collaborative role forms part of development journalism as the media acts as an extension of government policies with regard to social, economic and cultural development. The collaborative role goes against the libertarian and professional journalistic roles as it expresses many truths that in some cases would rather be left unsaid. Within the South African context, the media can be seen as a revolutionary tool of liberation from colonialism and imperialism. In relation to this course development journalism and the collaborative role were valid to a certain extent as some of our stories involved speaking to members of the Grahamstown municipality in order to find out more about the barriers to development in the community.
In contrast to this, Christians et al (2009: 126) further state that the radical role of the media aims to expose abuse of power and raise popular consciousness of wrongdoing, inequality and the potential for change. Radical alternative journalism goes a step further than ‘reformist’ public journalism. Public journalism is part of mainstream journalism and works within long-standing organisational, institutional and professional structures. The similarities between these two forms of journalism include opportunities for citizens to voice their opinions and debate on issues, they both organise a platform for citizen deliberation such as community meetings and local civic organisations and in doing so they follow up on issues addressed in these meetings through media coverage. Unlike the alternative journalism, public journalism attempts to reach out to the community in order for a reader response to generate sales.
These concepts are useful in a South African context because the only way the government can be made aware of the issues is through the public voicing their opinions and therefore being held accountable for lack of development. They have also been useful in the context of this course as we were only made aware of the issues once we had held our community meeting and had focus groups to reflect on our outputs.
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