Monday, November 1, 2010
distribution
We returned to Manley Flats to distribute DVDs and held small focus groups in which we played the soundslides and faciltated discussion around them with members of the farm-dwellers community we worked with closely.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Public journalism in action: a group evaluation
Public journalism aims to promote a sense of civic commitment by re-evaluating the way in which we, as journalists, should engage with the public. Rather than seeing the public as passive consumers of the media that we produce, it encourages us to treat citizens as active participants; not providing information to consumers, but rather catalysing conversation amongst citizens. This understanding is aligned with Haas’s public philosophy for public journalism, in terms of which he attempts to produce democratically viable conceptions of the public. During the course of our journalistic processes and outputs we attempted to promote this understanding by addressing people as citizens and potential participants, rather than victims or mere consumers. When we approached the people within our ward, we encouraged them to speak freely about their issues and asked them to form a part of our final media production; in effect these people became the very substance of our media production and it was their opinions and concerns that informed our final product.Our media outputs were not necessarily aimed only at the ‘powers that be’. It was about changing mindsets of people in our area as the issues we are dealing with are common to all South Africans.
We allowed the public to determine the agenda and the stories we pursued. We went for the advocacy approach and combined this with aspects of the public journalism approach. We fell short in letting the people find their own solutions – not all of us gave the citizens the opportunity to find their own solutions. It was not always possible, however, for the community to solve their own problems, because the level of literacy in the ward was low. We took an advocacy approach, as we believed that this would offer more support to the citizens. We took initiatives to bridge the gap with the elite and the people on the ground by talking to the former ourselves.
Blending advocacy journalism with the ‘watchdog’ role of journalism, we wanted to hold the people in power accountable with one of the sound slides. We had to take it upon ourselves because the citizens of the community could not reach those responsible. We contacted the Department of Education in this regard.
Another sound slide took the developmental approach, because it was not clear who was responsible for finding a solution to the problem. This group presented their content to organisations such as Galela Amanzi at Rhodes University and Peter Wylie, a local farmer.
The TV piece used the advocacy approach to give farmers another platform to communicate their concerns. Here we aimed to change the mindset rather than the circumstances. It does not fall under traditional journalism as such; this output was a mixture of advocacy and developmental journalism.
The groups that made the pamphlets took the communication for development approach. The pamphlet about rape aimed to empower parents by providing them with information that is not ordinarily available in their area. The second pamphlet also used an alternative method as it was less a matter of providing newsworthy information, and more about seeking opportunities to create tangible change with the help of local NGOs and businesses.
By approaching this project the way we did, we found the root of the problems before running to the municipality, which is different to what we have been taught as mainstream journalists. Our journalism had its foundations in the personal stories we uncovered in our research. By getting out into the community, we were able to tap into its identity, and in some cases found issues that were harrowing.
We all had good intentions going into the community and to change the reputation we have for exploiting the citizens for our academic gain. Nonetheless, we were still faced with constraints because there are only so many resources we have available to address the problems. Everyone was quite hesitant about the whole project at first, but it came down to how far we were individually willing to commit ourselves.
Once you get to the community, you realise just how real their issues are, to the point that you question your journalistic beliefs about simply getting the story on the page, or providing an ‘objective’ account. It’s about relating to the people. It’s no longer about just handing in the assignment.
One of the core challenges the project presented was the lack of sustainability. We do not have a long period of time to create a problem-solving structure that is sustainable, whether by students or citizens. Ideally, we would like the citizens to take responsibility for their problems on a long-term scale with the foundations we have provided. However, because of a shortage of education and community leaders, there will be natural hindrances to their progress. There were also no citizen journalists in this ward to provide another voice for the citizens.
Although our group all had different issues to cover, there were ways in which we worked together. We faced language barriers when we did our research, but we made sure that group members from different linguistic backgrounds were present to help us out. Aside from the language barrier, there were also occasional cultural differences, that made it difficult for certain groups to communicate both their concerns and aims to the citizens. The fact that each production pair focussed on a different issue ensured that we appealed to multiple target audiences and therefore did not bombard one specific audience with too much content.
Using Grocott’s Mail as a platform for our media outputs gave us more authority and allowed us to get heard by more people. With a wider awareness of the issues we covered, it is more likely that deliberation will occur across Grahamstown.
The TV story showed animosity between the farmers and workers. By reporting their stories, we feel that we are bridging the gap between them and moving towards reconciliation. We can only do this if people are willing and are open to discussion.
We allowed the public to determine the agenda and the stories we pursued. We went for the advocacy approach and combined this with aspects of the public journalism approach. We fell short in letting the people find their own solutions – not all of us gave the citizens the opportunity to find their own solutions. It was not always possible, however, for the community to solve their own problems, because the level of literacy in the ward was low. We took an advocacy approach, as we believed that this would offer more support to the citizens. We took initiatives to bridge the gap with the elite and the people on the ground by talking to the former ourselves.
Blending advocacy journalism with the ‘watchdog’ role of journalism, we wanted to hold the people in power accountable with one of the sound slides. We had to take it upon ourselves because the citizens of the community could not reach those responsible. We contacted the Department of Education in this regard.
Another sound slide took the developmental approach, because it was not clear who was responsible for finding a solution to the problem. This group presented their content to organisations such as Galela Amanzi at Rhodes University and Peter Wylie, a local farmer.
The TV piece used the advocacy approach to give farmers another platform to communicate their concerns. Here we aimed to change the mindset rather than the circumstances. It does not fall under traditional journalism as such; this output was a mixture of advocacy and developmental journalism.
The groups that made the pamphlets took the communication for development approach. The pamphlet about rape aimed to empower parents by providing them with information that is not ordinarily available in their area. The second pamphlet also used an alternative method as it was less a matter of providing newsworthy information, and more about seeking opportunities to create tangible change with the help of local NGOs and businesses.
By approaching this project the way we did, we found the root of the problems before running to the municipality, which is different to what we have been taught as mainstream journalists. Our journalism had its foundations in the personal stories we uncovered in our research. By getting out into the community, we were able to tap into its identity, and in some cases found issues that were harrowing.
We all had good intentions going into the community and to change the reputation we have for exploiting the citizens for our academic gain. Nonetheless, we were still faced with constraints because there are only so many resources we have available to address the problems. Everyone was quite hesitant about the whole project at first, but it came down to how far we were individually willing to commit ourselves.
Once you get to the community, you realise just how real their issues are, to the point that you question your journalistic beliefs about simply getting the story on the page, or providing an ‘objective’ account. It’s about relating to the people. It’s no longer about just handing in the assignment.
One of the core challenges the project presented was the lack of sustainability. We do not have a long period of time to create a problem-solving structure that is sustainable, whether by students or citizens. Ideally, we would like the citizens to take responsibility for their problems on a long-term scale with the foundations we have provided. However, because of a shortage of education and community leaders, there will be natural hindrances to their progress. There were also no citizen journalists in this ward to provide another voice for the citizens.
Although our group all had different issues to cover, there were ways in which we worked together. We faced language barriers when we did our research, but we made sure that group members from different linguistic backgrounds were present to help us out. Aside from the language barrier, there were also occasional cultural differences, that made it difficult for certain groups to communicate both their concerns and aims to the citizens. The fact that each production pair focussed on a different issue ensured that we appealed to multiple target audiences and therefore did not bombard one specific audience with too much content.
Using Grocott’s Mail as a platform for our media outputs gave us more authority and allowed us to get heard by more people. With a wider awareness of the issues we covered, it is more likely that deliberation will occur across Grahamstown.
The TV story showed animosity between the farmers and workers. By reporting their stories, we feel that we are bridging the gap between them and moving towards reconciliation. We can only do this if people are willing and are open to discussion.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Manley Flats Reflection
By Laura Watermeyer and Zinziswa Mani
We have produced an audio slideshow that aims to highlight scholar transport issues within the Manley Flats area, Grahamstown. The transport provided to children in the area is largely unreliable and poorly run. Our media product looks at the issue from the perspective of the principal of Manley Flats Primary School, as well as from the parents of the children affected and the children themselves. What follows is a discussion of this media product in terms of Haas’ public philosophy of public journalism as well as a critical evaluation of the production process.
Public journalism aims to promote a sense of civic commitment by re-evaluating the way in which we, as journalists, should engage with the public. Rather than seeing the public as passive consumers of the media that we produce, it encourages us to treat citizens as active participants; not providing information to consumers, but rather catalysing conversation amongst citizens. This understanding is aligned with Haas’s public philosophy for public journalism, in terms of which he attempts to produce democratically viable conceptions of the public. During the course of our journalistic processes and outputs we attempted to promote this understanding by addressing people as citizens and potential participants, rather than victims or mere consumers. When we approached the people within our ward, we encouraged them to speak freely about their issues and asked them to form a part of our final media production; in effect these people became the very substance of our media production and it was their opinions and concerns that informed our final product.
This was our intention at the outset and informed our objectives for our media product, namely to provide these people with a platform to address their issues and provide a voice for the voiceless. We think that these objectives have shown themselves to be realistic and measurable; however at the start of this process we were doubtful as to whether or not we would be able to take the issues of the community to a larger audience. This larger audience then formed the target audience to whom we wished to show our final media product; namely the Department of Education, who we understood to be in a position to facilitate change, and then other small businesses who we hoped may contribute toward the scholar transport problems within the Manley Flats area.
Haas suggests that journalists should create an open-ended public sphere to which all citizens have access and in which topics of concern can be openly articulated amongst the public, providing support for public discourse and deliberation. Due to the very rural location of our ward this posed an immediate challenge, particularly because we have chosen to work in a small farming community that is very detached from the mainstream media of Grahamstown. There has been little to no coverage of their particular area or of their concerns and as such we were faced with the challenge of trying to provide these citizens with a platform from which they could address and vocalize their issues and enable their opinions to be articulated amongst the public. It was very important to us that we could enable this very isolated and largely neglected community to become an active part of the public-sphere.
Haas’ approach is that journalists need to engage citizens as active participants in the news making process. This means that public journalists should share their authority with citizens by instituting various formal and informal means of involving citizens in the setting of news agendas; in effect listening to the public to help set a citizens news agenda. We made use of certain methods and techniques that we thought would be key in identifying problems of concern to local residents and that we thought would involve citizens in the setting of our news agenda. We involved citizens in in-depth interviews, for example we approached the principle of the local, rural school Manley Flats Primary School, and we encouraged him to talk freely about his concerns and thoughts. We also approached members of the community and conducted very informal meetings with them in their homes. We felt that this was the best way of allowing these people to talk freely and openly with us without feeling intimidated or uncertain of their views and opinions. Haas contends that journalists should rather see the public in terms of multiple social groups with different, and potentially conflicting, concerns. Thus, Haas contends that journalists should make every effort to keep the process of public deliberation as open and inclusive as possible, lessening the impact of social inequality and the difficulty of some citizens to participate on an equal footing. It is for this very reason, then, that we adopted this approach, we understood that a community of people who are very rural, and mostly only capable of speaking isiXhosa, would feel intimidated by a large community meeting where they may have felt that their issues were insignificant.
Haas puts forward a model that outlines the role ordinary citizens, experts, government officials and journalists should play in the problem solving process. He argues that while some problems may be potentially resolvable by citizens themselves, other problems may require active engagement and collaboration with experts and government officials. Our issue was one that centered on scholar transport and the major issues that stem from scholar transport within a very rural area. This is an issue that affects the people within the area and unfortunately is not one that they can deal with themselves. They are forced to make use of the government provided scholar transport that is inconsistent and poorly run. As a direct result of this their children and those of neighbouring communities are forced to walk long distances to reach their place of education. Further, they often have to walk in poor weather conditions or are unable to go to school at all, limiting their access to education. This is an obvious problem that needs to be addressed by the government and by the Department of Education. Thus, the issue clearly required some active engagement and collaboration with the people in power. What we did find very rewarding was the fact that we could take our media product to the Department of Education and we received some very positive assistance and comment from the Managing Director. Although we still have to wait to see what actually comes from the follow up interviews, etc., it was still very positive to know that we were able to provide a platform to address an issue that is so often overlooked in the mainstream media. What was even better was that we were able to provide citizens, who are so often excluded and neglected in terms of their actual concerns and problems, with the opportunity to actively participate in the public sphere.
We think that we adopted a largely facilitative approach to how we participated with the communities and in the production of our media product. However, this approach was coupled with advocacy journalism; an advocate journalist speaks or pleads on behalf of another, giving the other a face and a voice. Thus, we attempted to improve the quality of public life and add to democracy. We do feel as though the media we produced has enhanced the process of development and democracy within Grahamstown. The people within this community have been largely overlooked by Grahamstown’s mainstream media and this obviously has dire effects on their involvement and consciousness of democratic processes. By bringing their concerns to public attention and actively making people aware of their issues we are also actively involving them in democratic process and making them a component of the public sphere. We have achieved this by making their concerns visible to a much larger community of people, via Grocott’s Mail and Grocott’s Mail Online for example. In effect, we have attempted to put a previously overlooked community of people in contact with civil society.
The ideas that were raised in our JDD and CMP class have impacted immensely on our identities as young professional journalists. It made us realise that we shouldn’t always push our own news agenda or the agenda that is imposed upon us by mainstream media organisations. Rather, we should actively try to let people tell their stories the way they want and give them a voice. It made us realise that sometimes we can’t always be objective when reporting on other people’s lives; sometimes elements of subjectivity can bring much needed dimension to a story, provided that the depiction is accurate. This course made us realise that we shouldn’t always cover stories in our own way; we should cover stories in a way that enables citizens to reflect on their different, potentially conflicting, concerns and interests. Rather than simply slipping into a monotorial role of journalism, where we serve to observe and report on the operation of the state, we were forced to think outside the box. For the first time our perceptions of “good old-fashioned journalism” were challenged and found wanting.
It no longer seems good enough to sit on the sidelines and conduct impartial, objective interviews. Rather, there is a desire to search for a story and tell it in a way that will facilitate change. We realise the need of actively bringing much needed attention to those sectors of our community that need our help in telling their story and surely this is our purpose as journalists who are challenged with the role of advancing democracy and development?
How far we've come
By Jade Smith (W&E) and Tselane Moiloa (Design)
Our ward was difficult to cover because of its location – the area is sparsely populated and consists mainly of farms. Nonetheless, we attempted to implement some of the principles of Haas’s public philosophy for public journalism. What was most important to us was allowing the public to set their own news agenda. The issues raised by the people in Ward 4 are not attended to by their ward councillor, nor are they attended to by anyone else more powerful or affluent. It was vital that they got the chance to tell somebody what was important to them. By letting the community members raise the issues that concerned them most, we had the opportunity to take their side, as Haas suggests, and find someone in power who could best solve their problems, or at least make influential people aware of these issues. By going out to the area with an open mind, we let the citizens dictate what we were going to write about (replacing the news agenda with a community agenda, as per Haas’s recommendation), and that gave us new angles to work with, to freshen up the stories that we were used to. This was advantageous to us, as well as the community in that their problems would be dealt with in some way, even if they were not resolved.
Haas emphasises that public journalists should create multiple public spheres for deliberation, and ensure that inequalities are not propagated within them. We did not have a public meeting (which would have led to key deliberation in the multiple spheres) but spoke to people with different roles in the community so that we would reach a range of social strata. While the farmers spoke about their issues, farm workers had their own, as did the principal of a local school. Different issues were pursued by different production groups (eg. TV students took farming, WED groups educational issues and Radio/Photojourn students basic amenities). This allowed us to cover a range of issues, and this way nobody in the community would feel marginalised, that their voices were not being heard.
Taking a non-objective approach (as Haas expects public journalists to do), proved much more beneficial to the community than an objective one, especially in our ward. We could just have reported on the issues we uncovered and left it there, as mainstream journalists are inclined to do. We realised, however, that in some cases the citizens could help themselves, but needed some external help that we could provide. Having said that, we did not seek to impose ourselves on them, but asked for their input on what to include in the media we produced, and got feedback from them about what could be improved. The key to Haas’s public philosophy is to create a problem-solving structure that the citizens can sustain themselves. At the school parents’ meeting that we attended, the parents discussed issues that their children were having, and the (female) principal also contributed, as they had common interests – the pupils. This was a sphere of deliberation that the community already had in place. From this meeting we learnt of problem areas in the community that parents did not know how to deal with. Information about these problems is freely available to us at Rhodes and on the Internet, so it only required a bit of research to bring this information to the people that needed it, but could not access it. Equipping parents with this information provides the community with a sustainable resource which will grow as it is spread by word of mouth.
Because we took such a hands-on approach, nothing was lost in employing public journalism methods, other than the municipality’s respect. Taking a mainstream approach would seem callous, as such a little bit of work (gathering information) can make a big difference in the community, so why not do it? This attitude helped the community, and that adds more value to society than writing an article for coursework requirements or to sell a commercial newspaper.
------
The idea of using ordinary people as sources was alien to us as student journalists – usually our first port of call is a person in authority (for example a lecturer, the municipality spokesperson, or head of organisation). We have been trained not to report on something unless it is a fact. Suddenly we had to use people’s opinions to form our news agenda. And not even the opinions of people in high places. This was the collaborative role in the opposite direction: instead of collaborating with the people in power, we were working with citizens of the community.
We have been educated in the ways of the monitorial role of journalism, so it was intimidating to venture out into the unknown areas of the municipality. Being removed from our comfort zones of campus and surrounds was character-building. Initially, we delved into the course with the idea that we are really only just student journalists, with no resources to help these people; hence most of us felt like we would be exploiting the people of Grahamstown. However, with all the effort that has been put into the production of the media outputs, we became attached to the community and promoting their agenda.
We didn’t know what to expect and had to think on our feet about how to approach people we came across, what questions to ask, and how to deal with various reactions to our project. In retrospect, this is much more effective journalism training than putting us in an office and making us phone sources. The approaches the JDD-CMP course has forced us to take has created another dimension to our journalism education that we would not have got otherwise.
JDD-CMP has naturalised another perspective in our minds – the “what would the citizens do” angle. It makes sense. The community reads our productions, so we need to be sensitive to what they want to read, not force our ‘newsworthy’ content on them. Instead of getting the five W’s and an H and running back to our computers to bang out the story, we have become sympathetic to the community’s needs. Instead of feeling the relief that comes with meeting a deadline, there is something else that nags at us. We want to know that our media output is going to achieve something. A by-line is not enough. We want a result.
-----
Once we heard about the issues our allocated ward community was facing, we decided our objectives should be to disseminate information to people who needed it most. We are only student journalists after all, and we cannot solve problems like alien plants, lack of water, or rape. We used a non-mainstream approach of making pamphlets to educate our target audience (parents of schoolchildren) about steps to follow if their child is raped. It also included phone numbers of relevant organisations: police, Child Welfare, Childline, AIDS helpline, and the Raphael Centre. This would serve the community much better than a big piece of paper stuck on the wall telling them something they already know. The pamphlets could be sent home with the pupils and therefore reach the intended audience (if all goes well). They are small, so can be carried around (even between households).
We had a focused, utilitarian approach – bring the message across to the parents. Even though the pamphlet did not look as eye-catching as some wall newspapers produced by the rest of the class, a lot of work went into it. The content had to be researched, and the language had to be simple, as most parents had not received much education. The English content was then translated into isiXhosa, the mother tongue of the target audience.
The design part of this project was not easy as we thought it would be. The mere fact that we were not putting together a wall newspaper introduced other challenges. While there was no way we could document sodomy and sexual abuse without being explicit and possibly offending, what was challenging was how we would introduce the topic to this conservative community. These are some of the factors that were considered when designing the pamphlet. Based on our budget constraints, we decided that we would print in black and white for cost efficiency as we wanted to print in bulk and not just eight copies as has been done with the newspaper. On the design specifically, we decided on being as basic and simple as possible. This limited how far we could go with making it visually appealing in terms of colour. At this point, the important thing to us has been to facilitate the necessary information to the parents and slowly help towards decreasing the rate of rape and sexual abuse among the children. While it may not grab as much attention as a wall newspaper, we are confident that it brought the message across.
We did interviews for research. Most crucial was a one-on-one interview with a HIV counsellor at the Raphael Centre about the steps to take when a child has been raped. This made up the majority of our pamphlet’s content. We made sure to include details that the teachers asked for. For example, a girl was raped and her mother washed her body and clothes, so the police could not gather evidence for the case. Not washing your child was a prominent point in the pamphlet, and we took care to include the reasons for this. We got the latest rape statistics from a document which came from the SAPS website. The pamphlet provided statistics for Grahamstown, the Eastern Cape and South Africa. Our motivation was that we wanted to make it relevant to our Manley Flats audience, but generalised enough that it could be reproduced for parents in other areas, as the problem of rape is widespread. People we have spoken to thus far agree that we could distribute this widely.
Other than educating parents, we hope that this will encourage the community to talk amongst themselves about rape, as it is regarded as somewhat taboo. Rapes are reported to the principal, not the police. We have not received feedback from the parents for logistical reasons (it is difficult to reach all their houses). Based on this, we went around asking parents on campus (ie kitchen staff, housekeeping etc) for general thoughts and feedback about the pamphlet because they are parents too. The teachers have assured us that our production will be very helpful as a catalyst for change in the community. They especially liked our list of phone numbers, saying that parents will be able to get help faster on weekends (because the school is closed, so they can’t report rape). Bringing all the phone numbers together is useful for the parents as they can keep them as an easy reference. One teacher added that we could improve on our pamphlet by including a section of signs to look out for to tell if your child has been raped. An example of this would be that the child does not want the parent to touch them at bath time.
Our ward was difficult to cover because of its location – the area is sparsely populated and consists mainly of farms. Nonetheless, we attempted to implement some of the principles of Haas’s public philosophy for public journalism. What was most important to us was allowing the public to set their own news agenda. The issues raised by the people in Ward 4 are not attended to by their ward councillor, nor are they attended to by anyone else more powerful or affluent. It was vital that they got the chance to tell somebody what was important to them. By letting the community members raise the issues that concerned them most, we had the opportunity to take their side, as Haas suggests, and find someone in power who could best solve their problems, or at least make influential people aware of these issues. By going out to the area with an open mind, we let the citizens dictate what we were going to write about (replacing the news agenda with a community agenda, as per Haas’s recommendation), and that gave us new angles to work with, to freshen up the stories that we were used to. This was advantageous to us, as well as the community in that their problems would be dealt with in some way, even if they were not resolved.
Haas emphasises that public journalists should create multiple public spheres for deliberation, and ensure that inequalities are not propagated within them. We did not have a public meeting (which would have led to key deliberation in the multiple spheres) but spoke to people with different roles in the community so that we would reach a range of social strata. While the farmers spoke about their issues, farm workers had their own, as did the principal of a local school. Different issues were pursued by different production groups (eg. TV students took farming, WED groups educational issues and Radio/Photojourn students basic amenities). This allowed us to cover a range of issues, and this way nobody in the community would feel marginalised, that their voices were not being heard.
Taking a non-objective approach (as Haas expects public journalists to do), proved much more beneficial to the community than an objective one, especially in our ward. We could just have reported on the issues we uncovered and left it there, as mainstream journalists are inclined to do. We realised, however, that in some cases the citizens could help themselves, but needed some external help that we could provide. Having said that, we did not seek to impose ourselves on them, but asked for their input on what to include in the media we produced, and got feedback from them about what could be improved. The key to Haas’s public philosophy is to create a problem-solving structure that the citizens can sustain themselves. At the school parents’ meeting that we attended, the parents discussed issues that their children were having, and the (female) principal also contributed, as they had common interests – the pupils. This was a sphere of deliberation that the community already had in place. From this meeting we learnt of problem areas in the community that parents did not know how to deal with. Information about these problems is freely available to us at Rhodes and on the Internet, so it only required a bit of research to bring this information to the people that needed it, but could not access it. Equipping parents with this information provides the community with a sustainable resource which will grow as it is spread by word of mouth.
Because we took such a hands-on approach, nothing was lost in employing public journalism methods, other than the municipality’s respect. Taking a mainstream approach would seem callous, as such a little bit of work (gathering information) can make a big difference in the community, so why not do it? This attitude helped the community, and that adds more value to society than writing an article for coursework requirements or to sell a commercial newspaper.
------
The idea of using ordinary people as sources was alien to us as student journalists – usually our first port of call is a person in authority (for example a lecturer, the municipality spokesperson, or head of organisation). We have been trained not to report on something unless it is a fact. Suddenly we had to use people’s opinions to form our news agenda. And not even the opinions of people in high places. This was the collaborative role in the opposite direction: instead of collaborating with the people in power, we were working with citizens of the community.
We have been educated in the ways of the monitorial role of journalism, so it was intimidating to venture out into the unknown areas of the municipality. Being removed from our comfort zones of campus and surrounds was character-building. Initially, we delved into the course with the idea that we are really only just student journalists, with no resources to help these people; hence most of us felt like we would be exploiting the people of Grahamstown. However, with all the effort that has been put into the production of the media outputs, we became attached to the community and promoting their agenda.
We didn’t know what to expect and had to think on our feet about how to approach people we came across, what questions to ask, and how to deal with various reactions to our project. In retrospect, this is much more effective journalism training than putting us in an office and making us phone sources. The approaches the JDD-CMP course has forced us to take has created another dimension to our journalism education that we would not have got otherwise.
JDD-CMP has naturalised another perspective in our minds – the “what would the citizens do” angle. It makes sense. The community reads our productions, so we need to be sensitive to what they want to read, not force our ‘newsworthy’ content on them. Instead of getting the five W’s and an H and running back to our computers to bang out the story, we have become sympathetic to the community’s needs. Instead of feeling the relief that comes with meeting a deadline, there is something else that nags at us. We want to know that our media output is going to achieve something. A by-line is not enough. We want a result.
-----
Once we heard about the issues our allocated ward community was facing, we decided our objectives should be to disseminate information to people who needed it most. We are only student journalists after all, and we cannot solve problems like alien plants, lack of water, or rape. We used a non-mainstream approach of making pamphlets to educate our target audience (parents of schoolchildren) about steps to follow if their child is raped. It also included phone numbers of relevant organisations: police, Child Welfare, Childline, AIDS helpline, and the Raphael Centre. This would serve the community much better than a big piece of paper stuck on the wall telling them something they already know. The pamphlets could be sent home with the pupils and therefore reach the intended audience (if all goes well). They are small, so can be carried around (even between households).
We had a focused, utilitarian approach – bring the message across to the parents. Even though the pamphlet did not look as eye-catching as some wall newspapers produced by the rest of the class, a lot of work went into it. The content had to be researched, and the language had to be simple, as most parents had not received much education. The English content was then translated into isiXhosa, the mother tongue of the target audience.
The design part of this project was not easy as we thought it would be. The mere fact that we were not putting together a wall newspaper introduced other challenges. While there was no way we could document sodomy and sexual abuse without being explicit and possibly offending, what was challenging was how we would introduce the topic to this conservative community. These are some of the factors that were considered when designing the pamphlet. Based on our budget constraints, we decided that we would print in black and white for cost efficiency as we wanted to print in bulk and not just eight copies as has been done with the newspaper. On the design specifically, we decided on being as basic and simple as possible. This limited how far we could go with making it visually appealing in terms of colour. At this point, the important thing to us has been to facilitate the necessary information to the parents and slowly help towards decreasing the rate of rape and sexual abuse among the children. While it may not grab as much attention as a wall newspaper, we are confident that it brought the message across.
We did interviews for research. Most crucial was a one-on-one interview with a HIV counsellor at the Raphael Centre about the steps to take when a child has been raped. This made up the majority of our pamphlet’s content. We made sure to include details that the teachers asked for. For example, a girl was raped and her mother washed her body and clothes, so the police could not gather evidence for the case. Not washing your child was a prominent point in the pamphlet, and we took care to include the reasons for this. We got the latest rape statistics from a document which came from the SAPS website. The pamphlet provided statistics for Grahamstown, the Eastern Cape and South Africa. Our motivation was that we wanted to make it relevant to our Manley Flats audience, but generalised enough that it could be reproduced for parents in other areas, as the problem of rape is widespread. People we have spoken to thus far agree that we could distribute this widely.
Other than educating parents, we hope that this will encourage the community to talk amongst themselves about rape, as it is regarded as somewhat taboo. Rapes are reported to the principal, not the police. We have not received feedback from the parents for logistical reasons (it is difficult to reach all their houses). Based on this, we went around asking parents on campus (ie kitchen staff, housekeeping etc) for general thoughts and feedback about the pamphlet because they are parents too. The teachers have assured us that our production will be very helpful as a catalyst for change in the community. They especially liked our list of phone numbers, saying that parents will be able to get help faster on weekends (because the school is closed, so they can’t report rape). Bringing all the phone numbers together is useful for the parents as they can keep them as an easy reference. One teacher added that we could improve on our pamphlet by including a section of signs to look out for to tell if your child has been raped. An example of this would be that the child does not want the parent to touch them at bath time.
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