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.

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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.

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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.