Introduction for News
In the second term, Frequency News came into full operation. The agency was split in two and I became a proud member of the G-News podcast team. The team was dynamic, innovative and committed to news that was accurate in its reporting, fair, based on in depth research, sensitivity and professionalism. We all took the responsibility to ensure that the individual news stories that we produced followed the agencies code of conduct. Of greater importance to me was that my individual stories complied with my personal journalistic philosophy.
The G-News team shared the responsibility of delivering the latest news in a weekly podcast. Around the time of our first broadcast, Julius Malema’s incident with the BBC reporter Johan Fisher was hot in the headlines. I took the story on, applying it to a local context and how it affected the youth league in Grahamstown. As the ANC’s youth league president it is assumed that the Malema’s views are representative of the parties’ members. I wanted to find out if the Grahamstown youth league members agreed with Malema’s racist attack at journalist Fisher at the recent press conference.
I had a good idea in the conceptualising the story. It was current, relevant and of significant importance to my community. However, looking back I believe I could have done the story a greater justice. For starters I could have reached out to a wider youthful audience, especially ones that were not members of Rhodes University. It was stipulated very early on in the course that students could not be used as valid interviewees unless one could pitch a very impressive story that includes them. I now know that there are plenty of ANCYL members and had I applied greater effort to finding them, my story would have been more credible. Furthermore, if I had managed my time more effectively I could have possibly come up with a more creative way of delivering the story. After being broadcasted I realised that there is an opportunity to develop this story and make it more accurate and representative of youth league members. A possible follow up to the story that I may propose to my editor is that of exploring the tensions if any that exists in the ANC youth league and if the party members on a national scale are happy with their current president. This is not a farfetched story especially given the removal of our state president, Thabo Mbeki, from office because of the public’s discontent with him as party leader.
The second story that I produced for G-News podcast was about the launching of a potentially controversial telephone directory called the Black Pages. This directory is set to only feature business that are 100% black owned. In producing this story, I managed to overcome some of the shortfalls from my first podcast feature. One of our agency’s aims is to give national news a local spin. Although this was also met in the Malema story, the attempt was half-hearted, since I did not actually talk to locals but students. The piece lost credibility and could not be regarded as accurate. This time around however I had a better connection to Agency aims and my personal philosophy. I found interesting sources who added value to the black pages story.
Though it would have been nice to hear from one 100% black owned business in Grahamstown, time constraints and a lack of resources prevented me from finding such a business. But this could be a potential area on which to develop the original story. I would suggest a follow up to my editor, taking the spin of evaluating to what extent the black pages have changed the business environment of one or two 100% black owned businesses in Grahamstown? Were any employment opportunities created? And what are the projections for future business activities and development in Grahamstown.
