A new way for journalism

As part of our Press Freedom Day celebrations on October 19, we had Afra (Association For Rural Advancement) director John Aitchison (Professor Emeritus of Adult Education) give us a talk on The Witness and its role as a watchdog and voice in society.

“This important day in media commemorates Black Wednesday, a dark day for the press in October 1977 where The World, Weekend World and Pro Veritate publications were banned for their alleged perpetuation of the black consciousness movement,” Times Live explains. “Celebrating press freedom 32 years later sparked debate as to whether South Africa does indeed have a free press.”

“We need more sarcastic writing,” Aitchison said, in reference to the many idiotic comments made by certain political figures. Everyone in the room agreed. Apart from that, he saw The Witness doing a fairly good job, even in today’s economic recession, when newspapers are cutting down on staff and resources.

But while listening to him, I had an idea about reforming journalism, firstly in Pietermaritzburg, and then further afield. Before I begin …

The main points I hear when people discuss journalism are:

a). The juniorisation of the press is killing press prestige;

b). Journalists are not valued and are paid accordingly;

c). Senior journalists get junior beats due to shortage of human resources;

d). Stories are not being investigated properly due to skill and time shortage

e). The quality of writing is low due to time constraints and poor English writing

f). Journalists are scared of being retrenched and have a low morale (They used to leave once they had found another job, but this is proving difficult under the current economic climate.)

There are journalists who want the press to improve and want to find ways of doing it within their newspaper, but they fail because of the demise of the press and the recession. However, after listening to Aitchison remind us how important our role as the Fourth Estate is, I realized society should get on board and help sustain journalists as watchdogs and feeders of information. Without the Fourth Estate, we would lose a part of our democracy and our soul.

My solution to this problem involves an institute, donors and partnerships. There would be problems with this concept, due to journalism’s integrity being based on autonomy and independence. How many truly, truly independent newspaper or media outlets do you know of? Business and government advertising hold huge sway over media outlets. I see it often with bigwigs marching into our editor’s office demanding apologies and better coverage.

I envisage an institute of excellence for journalists. Funded by international, national and local donors, this institute would demand complete autonomy in its reporting and would feed stories to local newspapers that subscribe, like Sapa or Reuters, except it would be modeled more like the Christian Science Monitor. The salary would match that of high paying NGOs so to lure back the experienced journalists from around the world who have gone into hiding (often as freelancers). Some would work in-house, others out-of-house.

It could start in Pietermaritzurg, if the city shows interest. The institute could partner with NGOs and universities who do research. The journalists at the institute could write research findings into stories that the average reader can truly engage with (sometimes spending time in the place of the research to get one-on-one stories to go with the findings).

The institute’s journalists would have the time to conduct important research of their own and be given the space to write a series of feature stories. Journalists would also get to team up with researchers from other NGOs to work alongside them during their work. The institute would also employ several people to work purely as researchers and photographers.

Several areas of interest would be given special coverage and experienced journalists in these beats would be employed:

Politics

Corruption

Economics

Health

Education

Basic services

Sport

Entertainment

Leisure

Once the institute has taken off specialising in feature writing for the local community of Pietermaritzburg, various avenues could be explored:

1. Branch out to other cities in South Africa and then abroad

2. Incorporate TV, radio and web media, and graphic design

3. Employ translators so stories can be sent to African and Afrikaans media outlets.

The second point is exciting, because a team of journalists (a press, TV, radio and graphic designer) could work on a project together and produce various forms of output for specific media needs.

The third point means the institute could employ journalists with a high knowledge of an African language or Afrikaans and then get that story translated into English. In other words, it would work both ways… not just translating English into the other SA languages.

This institute would greatly help a newspaper like The Witness. It would help the newspaper phase out senior reporters and instead focus on grooming junior reporters. In return, The Witness, paying a small subscription, would get quality feature stories with quality photography on issues that have been properly researched and written with flair.  Reporters could be offered lucrative positions in the institute and a competitive system could be created where one reporter is hired annually (on a year contract).

In later stages, graphic designers could contribute to the newspaper, helping give the paper more appeal.

The time to think as a newspaper with its staff being contained within the four walls of the company has passed. Advertising revenue and subscribers can’t sustain the newspaper of old, with its huge staff of quality journalists. However, an institute funded like an NGO, could have the capital to bring on board these types of journalists.

Why, then can’t a newspaper simply take that money and do it for themselves within their staff structure? Well the institute would eventually branch out to many other media outlets and give a valued service to many areas (each outlet would have stories that cater to their needs and would work at times on an exclusive basis).

The institute would not be a newspaper. It would have relationships with universities and NGOs and would not have to look to advertisers. It would have more freedom to work in a spacious system that allows creativity and quality work.

Eventually, the institute could publish books written by its journalists, produce documentaries made in-house and have a website that brings all its work together.

I believe this partnership within an institute of this nature would protect the role of the Fourth Estate and ensure South Africa’s democracy remains rich with stories that celebrate good figures in society and reveal those who are causing damage to our society.