Question One: Radio Studies
a) Upon reflection of my personal journalistic philosophy that was compiled at the beginning of this year I have come to realise how much I have grown as a journalist, yet at the same time how I have not changed at all. The changes to my personal philosophy that I have come to accept I believe I owe to working so close to those people who the stories directly involve, which is the what public/development journalism is based around.
In reporting on the community in which my stories would be based, I spoke of the geographical, historical, and divide between the haves and the have-nots. What I neglected to cover is religion, education and culture. It was a mistake to overlook these aspects of the Grahamstown community as they are vital aspects of Grahamstown life. In terms of religion Grahamstown is known for its churches, and has been given the nickname “the City of Saints”. Grahamstown has 56 churches, but that does not mean that other religions have been forgotten. There are mosques and various groups set up for other religions, however, the synagogue has closed down. Religion plays a big part in many of the lives of the residents of Grahamstown, yet to my knowledge it is not the source of any major societal issues.
Grahamstown is also known for its educational systems. There are three well-known private schools in grahams town, two very good model-c schools, as well as many government schools. Then there is Rhodes University and the East Cape Midlands College. Education is quite an issue in Grahamstown, as on one side of town people are getting a very good education (at Rhodes, private schools and model-c schools) and on the other side (the township schools) the students are lucky if the teachers even come to school.
Grahamstown is so rich in culture. There is so much history in this little town, as well a very diverse range of cultures. Because Grahamstown is often known as an arts town it draws many different people here. There are so many diverse people and cultures that it makes the town a very interesting place to find stories.
All the aspects of the Grahamstown community, the rich heritage, the many religions and cultures that can be found here, the evident disparities between the rich and the poor (in education and location) as well as the geographic bubble that Grahamstown finds itself in, makes it a prime community in which to find a story, be it news, a feature or a profile.
I still firmly believe, as I did at the beginning of the year that pure objectivity does not exist in journalism. It is a journalist’s job to try to tell the truth, and to be the middle-man between what is happening and the public. What I have come to learn since the beginning of the year is that objectivity is not necessarily the truth. Each side of a story is the truth to a different person. As I pointed out in the beginning of the year: The word angle in itself, or focus point, is the beginnings of bias. Journalists are constantly choosing what to put in a story and what to leave out. Information that may not be important to the journalist may be important to other people involved in the story. Sometimes the best truth can be found in the emotions of your subject rather than the facts of the overall story.
In my personal philosophy I stated I believed people were tired of hearing stories of the struggling poor. While I would still like to report on the unsung heroes who work with recovering addicts, hospice and other organisations, what I did not realise is that these two are very often linked. I also now believe that perhaps we have not heard enough stories of the struggling poor.
b) I believe that most media production companies will begin to incorporate development and/or public journalism into their news broadcasts. People are growing tired of always listening to the same sources and the same stories.
The stories that I hope to one day report on are the community based unsung heroes. For this kind of reporting I believe that a community radio station is where I would hope to one day work at. Being a small town girl, I have come to treasure the idea of community, and when a member of said community is in trouble, everybody bands in to help. This is the kind of feeling I want to generate with my stories. Commercial or public radio stations would not be the best choice for this kind of reporting.
South Africa is a county that is scarred by its past and it will take many years before these scars can be even vaguely healed. This is not to say that there is evidence that South Africa has come a long way since apartheid, merely that there is still so much to be done.
I believe that a community radio station will be best suited to my personal journalistic philosophy.
Community radio stations aim at uplifting their community by educating and informing them. This is the kind of journalism that I want to focus on. Find stories within a community that are uplifting and can show others what can be done. I prefer the emotional stories, the ones that are about people, to the distanced, fact-based stories that main stream style of journalism traditionally adopts. One particular radio station that I would perhaps be interested in working for is Whale Coast fm. They are a community radio station based in Hermanus.
Whale Coast fm is run by a dedicated team of volunteers who report on local news, current affairs, play music and magazine shows. They operate between 7am and 12 pm daily. I believe that this would be a good radio station to exercise the form of journalism that I like because Hermanus is a small sea side village that have a lot of fisherman living there as well as many tourists coming through the area. I believe that this is the kind of radio station that would seek upliftment stories about the surrounding community.
There will, however, be some limitations in working at Whale Coast fm. These are that it may be a little bit too small town to suit me. I think finding new stories regularly in a very small community will be challenging. We sometimes battle to find stories here in Grahamstown, which is a bit bigger that Hermanus. I also think that Whale Coast fm may be rather limiting if ever I did want to climb higher in a production company. I say this because the station is run by a group of volunteers; it is hardly a production company.
These limitations, however, are not major problems. The whole idea of public journalism is give the people a voice and hear their stories, and so to find stories, I would just need to ask different people. Someone will always have something to say. As for limiting in terms of climbing the ladder of a company, this would not be an immediate problem. If ever I did want to take on more, I could find ways of expanding the station. If not, I would just move onto something bigger.
My ideal target audience would be the communities in which I am gathering the stories from. So that they can hear about what is happening in their surroundings. I believe they would respond positively to my style of journalism as it aims to uplift and inspire. And the stories will be about them, not subjects that they cannot relate to.
Question 2: Radio Production
Introduction to Environmental Feature
In covering the environmental feature I adopted tactics almost opposite to those of my journalistic approach. The story I covered was on genetically modified food, and if it is a viable way to sustain the modern way of life and modern consumption.
Considering the content that need to be applied to this story it needed the opinions of experts and professionals. The story was purely scientific and as objective as possible. In essence it was done in the style of mainstream, traditional journalism. This is almost opposite to the style of journalism that I identify most with.
The story had no “human” element to it, what I mean by this is that the story was factual, and there was nothing in it that the listeners could really relate to. At most it is something the listeners would be interested in, not however something that they could relate to on a personal level.
One of the main problems that I encountered while interviewing sources was that because they were professionals and experts they spoke in a language that experts and professionals speak in. In other words it was difficult to get them to explain something in simple terms so that the listeners would be able to understand.
I found it difficult to cover this story, not only because it is hard to get in touch with the right experts and because they use complicated language, but because I could not relate to my story, and so did not feel particularly attached to it.
a) In terms of conceptualising my story for the environmental piece, I had a great deal of difficulty because the environment is such a well covered topic these days that it was very difficult to try and find a story that had not really been covered before. Once I had settled on a story idea I moved onto trying to find the relevant experts to contribute to my story.
We had not yet done a development journalism piece, so I had not quite established the same journalistic philosophy that I have adopted now. However, I still struggled with the concept of only approaching experts. One problem that I faced was what defines an expert? In other words, what makes a person and expert on the subject? Is it a scientist who sits in his lab all day and reads about it, or is it a farmer who works with the crops and sees firsthand the results?
All in all I found the environmental feature rather boring. This is probably because of the fact that I prefer stories with subjectivity, a story with emotion and one that will leave some kind of impression on the person who hears it, even if it is only for a moment. I have very little interest in a story that will put me to sleep, never mind my listeners. It is true, that I probably just chose a boring subject, and that there are many thrilling environmental stories with heart warming stories to go with them. I just prefer stories that do not focus around the opinions of experts and professionals.
b) As mentioned before, we had not yet done developmental journalism when we covered the environmental features. Despite this, I did not enjoy only speaking to experts to get the story. I felt that it was very one sided (even though I got opinions from both sides of the argument) I felt as though the audience were not really included. I feel that experts sometimes talk in a way that go over the audience’s head, even when explaining it simply.
Introduction to Development Feature
The development feature is where I changed my personal philosophy. I believe that development journalism is the best form of journalism. With this in mind it is not always appropriate, by this I mean that sometimes it is best for a story to be objective and factual, rather than somewhat subjective and based on human interest. I believe that development journalism works best with small scale journalism, as it is largely community based.
My story was one based on an after school centre for children to go to after school. These children do not have anywhere else to go after school, before their parents get home from work. Many of these children have bettered their school work by attending the “Lebone Centre”, one of the main focuses of the centre is to teach the children how to read properly. The children get a meal when they come and spend the day in a safe environment where they can learn. The ladies who work there are from the local community and so have a keen interest in these children’s futures.
This is the kind of story that I want to report on. It is heart warming and uplifting. The story is from the people who work there directly and so it gives them a voice. I think the reason why I enjoy this form of journalism so much more than the conventional mainstream form of journalism, is because this way I feel like I am contributing in some way. Even if it is just getting the story out so people can hear about it and help as well. That is what communities are all about, helping each other when they are in need. If I can somehow be a part of that I will feel like what I am doing is worthwhile.
b) I believe that I integrated my journalistic approach into my style of reporting successfully. The story is about the people telling the story, not the journalist telling the story. When you get the story straight from the people then you are told what the real story is. When the journalist goes in there with a specific list of questions, looking for a response to what “the boss” said, then the story will not be nearly as rich.
Development journalism is also based on gaining the trust of your interviewee. Journalists have developed the reputation of exploiting their subjects and twisting the words. If you let the interviewee guide the interview, then it shows that you want their side of the story. If a journalist barges in demanding answers, the subject will immediately be on the defence, and be very careful about what they say. If you want how they really feel then you’ll let them pick the story.
e) My journalistic approach has impacted the professional standards that I have set for myself, because my view of what professional journalism has changed. At the beginning of the year I believed professional journalism to be objective and factual. I no longer believe this to be the case. Because journalism has been presented in the same format for so many years (objective, factual and to the point), this is how most people believe professional journalism is. With development journalism becoming more and more popular, people’s minds are starting to change. Mainstream journalism leaves out so many excellent possible stories. Mainstream journalism is looking for stories that will affect everyone or interest everyone, and by everyone they mean the people who buy the newspapers and own radios and televisions, and therefore the news is usually political, economic or about a public figure. While these are very newsworthy for obvious reasons, it neglects the majority of the country. If we, as journalists, can make the news about the people again, maybe it will restore the people’s faith in journalists.
