Amy and Alex

According to Rosemary Goudreau, Managing Editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer, “Civic journalism is about enlarging the range of voices on stories, bringing to the surface the values behind peoples' opinions, helping citizens see possible common ground and giving information on how, if they choose, they can play a role in shaping solutions”, and we couldn’t agree more. This semester has seen our group travelling around Ward 3 in search of stories to inspire and motivate the communities we were visiting so that we could lend a hand in helping them help themselves. We wanted to focus on development, solutions and positivity rather than reworking stories about problems which the community are already familiar with, and we wanted to get as many community members involved as possible.

As Journalism 3 students, we have been given a wide range of opportunities to expand our journalistic skills and broaden our perceptions and knowledge of the world around us through-out our three years of study. However, we have never had to complete a task as big or as challenging as our JDD/CMP course. Challenges arose almost instantly when it came to putting Haas’s theory of the role that public journalism plays in society and the amount of responsibility that the movement has towards equality and democracy between the public and the journalists within the public sphere into action. Not only was it difficult to get to the various areas of Ward 3 but it was also increasingly difficult to get in touch with government or municipal leaders for the area who could help us achieve our goal of developing a better sense of democracy and communication among the various communities and their residents. After numerous attempts to try and gather information on all the towns in Ward 3, we decided that due to transport, communication and time problems, our group would focus on Riebeeck East only. This decision, though necessary, seemed to contradict Haas’s idea of public journalism as we were not giving the whole of Ward 3 a voice but rather Riebeeck East a voice. Therefore the equality we meant to create between the towns in Ward 3 faded very quickly.

However, all was not lost. After numerous visits to Riebeeck East, the range of possibilities to help the community help themselves became more and more abundant. The community began welcoming us with open arms and story ideas began to flow through-out Riebeeck East’s streets. We went in with an open and honest approach, telling the community that we would do what we could be we could make no definite promises which is why we think we were accepted into the community so easily. Being a journalist is not easy but becoming a civic journalist overnight and earning the respect of your community is probably much harder to achieve. However, we have managed to become civic journalists as well as members of the Riebeck East community. Through the relationships we have built and the tasks we have been given, we have developed journalistic, communication and people skills that will be beneficial to us in becoming the best journalists we can be. This course has enabled us to experience the fine line between objective journalism and emotional journalism and how hard it is to separate the one from the other. We came into this process to create different forms of media and get a good assignment mark and are coming out of this course as changed people. Journalism isn’t enough anymore. Writing down, recording and publishing stories is no longer the fix we thought it would be. We have become attached to a community that is in dire need of help and have in part become Riebeeck East’s media crusaders. Instead of using our media to just gain marks, we wanted to use it to help them and help other people to get involved in the process of helping someone else outside of their Ward or area.

We designed a 10 page A3 full colour wall newspaper which focused on main issues in the community which are affecting everyone such as the schooling problem and the Roads and Transport jobs being the only ones available in the community. We also looked at influential people or community members of Riebeeck East such as Cary Clark and Babalwa who are both working hard to do what they can to make a difference. Our publication was has both English and isiXhosa articles but the main focus was on the photography as we wanted the paper to have visual impact first then content impact as we needed to draw the community’s attention to the paper itself as they are not used to reading newspapers as they receive very little to no media. We are now in the process of starting an advertising campaign for any items which people are willing to donate to Riebeck East. We will then do a four page spread in Grocott’s Mail which will be mainly campaign focused as we will be appealing to the greater Grahamstown community for help in collecting items for the Riebeck East community. We want to take our media from an just an informational medium to something that can be beneficial to the community and in turn help us achieve our Ward 3 goal of helping the community to help itself which is why we have chosen to design pamphlets which have beneficial information on them such as influential members of the community contact details, how to grow your own veggie garden and what lies beyond the boundaries of Riebeeck East.   

Overall our group achieved what we set out to do at the beginning of this course but we are now trying to strive beyond that by trying to use our journalism to help give back to the community we have been working with. Riebeeck East has provided us with an opportunity to grow, not just as journalists, but also as people and has taught us to look beyond what you are so used to seeing everyday to find the bigger picture.  We entered the public sphere of Ward 3 as young journalists willing to learn as individuals but we leave as journalists willing to make a difference as a team.

References: 

Haas, T. 2007. The Pursuit of Public Journalism: Theory, Practice and 
Criticism. Routledge: New York.