Raessa Begum Rehman
I strongly feel that our podcast and my individual story have met the aims of the Agency and my personal journalistic philosophy. According to the Agency document, the characteristics of reporting, amongst others, include responsibility, accuracy and professionalism. My report, being an account of the strikes that had occurred in Grahamstown has shown these characteristics as I have used an array of sources to put my story together. This includes talking to residents in Grahamstown and relating their feelings or the toll that the strikes have taken on them at a personal level. My main challenge however was deciding whether or not to include sound bytes in my piece which now, I’ve realised, is the most important rule in radio journalism as this adds essence to any story: to get the most personal account of any issue being reported.
According to my personal journalistic philosophy however, I believe that I have fulfilled my objective in this regard when it comes to both my individual story as well as the podcast as a whole. This is because making my reporting easily understandable and accessible was the main aim of my philosophy. Since Grahamstown functions as a diverse community with many different kinds of people, this news needs to apply to all kinds of people in this social spectrum. This, I feel, was properly fulfilled.
Our podcast was extremely entertaining since we created a jingle which was upbeat and hyped creating a sense of excitement and suspense. This keeps the listener interested.
Technically, our podcast could have been done within better time. We had not been as organised as we would have liked to be but we managed to put together a great podcast considering the time constraints we were under. According to the Agency, our podcast had fulfilled most of what was required of us, our team was as objective as possible, our soundbytes were accounted for and we selected our top stories with the larger Grahamstown community in mind. In our next production, I would use more soundbytes for my story to make it more accountable and we as group would try and manage our time much better than we did in this podcast.
Jane van Doorene
I believe that my individual podcast story has met most of the aims that I have outlined in my personal philosophy as well as the agency document. I have reported the news on a factual, informative basis. In doing so, I have provided the opinions of others instead of my own. Furthermore, I have committed to the guidelines of ethical reporting. I have accepted my role as a social commentator and facilitator to inform while trying to remain fair and sensitive to the needs of the community.
I have used sources external to Rhodes campus as this was one of the aims outlined in the agency document and I wanted to report on news that was relevant to the wider Grahamstown community. I also attempted to air the voices of the minority and shed light on the injustices and repercussions of the action taken by South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) to the Old Gaol. However, I tried to balance the story by getting the views of other businesses as to why they think the Old Gaol should not stay open. I would have liked to have spoken to someone from SAHRA but unfortunately no one was available for comment. Thus, in future I hope to secure my sources beforehand in order to ensure that all the voices are given an opportunity to speak.
This story has the potential to focus on important issues which have relevance to the wider community, for example the unemployment of staff, the loss of a culturally diverse backpackers and the thoughts of surrounding businesses. In doing so, I hoped to educate individuals about the repercussions of what it would mean for the Old Gaol backpackers to close.
More broadly speaking, the podcast could improve technically by adjusting the introductory music and possibly changing it to suite the more casual style of reporting that was used by the anchor, Tom Sizeland. Also, I think all the stories need to experiment more with different sound opportunities and need to be creative in order to truly entertain the people who listen to the podcast. Thus, the package should transport listeners and make them feel as if they are in the environment in which the reporter is telling the story.
The final podcast was, however, overall a success and the group worked well together to produce good quality, newsworthy reports in a variety of different formats. This variety as well as the casual tone the group decided to use helped engage the listener. We also aimed to present stories which were specifically about Grahamstown even if they originated elsewhere. For example, Fifi Peter’s story was about the views individuals had regarding Melema’s comments and the response from the Grahamstown ANC youth League.
Fifi Peters
When my news team, G-News set out to produce our first podcast, we did so bearing in mind the aims of our agency document. These, amongst other things, were a commitment to ethical reporting that is characterised by:
• Responsibility
• Professionalism
• Accuracy
• Fairness
• Thorough research
• Sensitivity
As a team, G-News podcast managed to achieve these aims. Each news story within the G-News podcast reflects accurate reporting, in depth research and professional etiquette. The same can be said for my individual story, ‘Ex-Convicts Journey to Success’. My partner and I did our best to produce this piece, given the obstacles we had to face. Time or the lack of it was a crucial challenge. It was quite difficult to secure an interview with Makhaya Thibiyshe. Even when we finally managed to do so, he had to cancel on the day of the interview as a result of a delivery that failed to come in one time. Pushed by the necessity to meet our deadline, Amy and I had to collect as much information as possible to ensure an accurate and fair story that maintained partiality. The end result was agreeable. That is not to say, however, that it could not have been better. I hope to improve on the quality of my work in our next podcast.
I think the more excited a journalist is about a particular story, the better they are at telling it. I was completely engaged in the Ramaposa story about the black pages. Perhaps because I am an economist at heart and I know that such a directory would have profound economic implications on our country, not to mention the political stir that may arise from a directory that is exclusively for businesses that are 100% owned. I was quite surprised at the opinions of Richard Pithouse, the political lecture at Rhodes University. I had expected him to be outraged at the launch of such a directory, citing racism or exclusion as the main reason; however, his stance was the complete opposite. What was interesting was the way he juxtaposed the initiative of the black pages as similar to that of promoting women’s rights or gay rights and other such privileges for groups who had been previously marginalised in society. The economic perspective, being that such a directory could actually spur growth in the country was also enlightening. My intention was to produce a story that was informative, educational and inspirational, especially to businessman of Grahamstown; reporting on news that would give hope to a better and more successful tomorrow in a town characterised by profound poverty.
I hope that I met this aim.
