My first Citizen Journalism class at local Grahamstown community newspaper Grocott’s Mail (GM) is history. Eleven participants this morning learned what a citizen journalist is, what news is and how they can generate their own story ideas.

It’s exciting to be part of the project named Iindaba Ziyafika (The news is coming). “The project focuses on developing innovative ways of using new media technologies to facilitiate community journalism, and is funded by a grant from the US-based John S. and James L. Knight Foundation“, explains the GM website concisely.

Part of the training were a number of practical exercises and a slideshow.

Course outline

Week 1: What is Grocott’s Mail about? What is a citizen reporter?
Week 2: A nose for news: what is newsworthy? Basics of good journalism.
Week 3: Writing a publishable news story: the lead and story structures.
Week 4: Interviews, observation, sources, facts and ethics.
Week 5: Photography: how to take better photos with your cellphone. Introduction to basic photo editing.
Week 6: Producing citizen journalism.

GM is excited about the potential that the Grocott’s Mail Citizen Journalism Newsroom holds for encouraging and empowering all citizens of Grahamstown to more actively engage in debates and discussions about important issues in their lives through producing and publishing their own original content. In short, the Grocott’s Mail Citizen Journalism Newsroom is intended to foster a keener sense of community awareness, involvement and, ultimately, pride.

Links

For more information please visit the GM website, the Citizen Journalism Newsroom info page and the productions of the previous course.

By Zimkhitha Mbunge

Applications for the third Grocott’s Mail Citizen Journalism course close at 5pm on Monday 15 February – go to www.grocotts.co.za/cj to register now.
The course, which is free of charge, takes place in the Grocott’s Mail Citizen Journalism newsroom, and will run for six weeks, from Monday 22 February to Thursday 1 April 2010, from 9am to 11am.

Four groups of 10 participants each will complete the course – one group for each day of the week.

Participants need to have basic computer skills to take part in the course, which will cover a variety of topics geared at turning ordinary citizens into citizen journalists.

Participants will be taught the basics of good journalism, how to write a publishable news story, how to set up and conduct interviews, and how to take good photos with your cellphone.

Course trainer Elvira van Noort says, “I expect this course to be another success story. Participants will leave with a fine set of skills and knowledge that they can apply to assist their community from a grassroots level.
Issues they can focus on range from health, education and crime to service delivery. The plan is to stir the pot a bit.”

Three or four outstanding course participants will also have the opportunity of sitting in on Grocott’s Mail diary meetings after the course is finished.
These star reporters will get the chance to keep on writing for the newspaper and will receive remuneration for their efforts.

Participants in the previous two courses had a variety of stories published, which can all be read in the MyStory section on the Grocott’s Mail website (www.grocotts.co.za).

A themed campaign dealing with the issue of waste management in Grahamstown   Ukucoca eMakana (Makana Clean-up) – saw many wellthought out stories accompanied by photographs being produced and published by course participants towards the end of last year.

If you’re the type of person who takes interest in what’s happening around you and you love telling stories, this course is for you. You can use the skills you’ll learn to tell Grahamstown about the interesting people and happenings in your community or in your organisation.

For more information and to register for the course,visit www.grocotts.co.za/cj or come in to Grocott’s Mail (40 High Street) to fill in a form.

In 2009 EvN extended its practical skills on multiple media platforms, including mobile. Keeping up-to-date with new media technologies and social media is necessary to grow EvN into a company that keeps on the foreground of offering new media solutions to media companies and media projects. The year also presented many new insights with projects related to press freedom and digital activism.

2010

EvN in 2010 will keep on offering the friendly, quick and professional service you are used to. With the World Cup on the calendar it will be a more dynamic year and it is anticipated that EvN will this year work with new clients from all over the world.

EvN Media Solutions in 2010 will continue to offer the following services:

• multimedia productions of hard and soft news  from Southern Africa and The Netherlands
• editing of (South African) English and Dutch articles
• newsroom management during multimedia projects
• newsroom assistance
• academic research into new/ social/ mobile media
• lectures, workshop and master classes about new media/ social media/ journalism skills/ Southern Africa
• media consultancy & Southern Africa travel consultancy
• translating of text from (South African) English to Dutch
• …and much much more…

Please get in touch via our Contact page, we would love to hear from you!

All the best in 2010,

EvN – Media Solutions

DCI 4.0 PRESS RELEASE

The fourth Digital Citizen’s Indaba (DCI) takes place on 5 – 6 September at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, just before the University’s annual Highway Africa conference. DCI is an annual event that brings together bloggers, online and mobile journalists, citizen reporters, new media practitioners, online industry experts and civil society representatives. The purpose of DCI is to encourage citizen participation in debate about the state of digital media, information sharing and skills transfer using experts in the field. It encourages the use of new media take-up by non-journalists.

THEME
The theme of this year’s DCI is ‘Digital civil society and journalism in Africa’. There has been an explosion of new media at civil society level. Issues around land rights and access to housing and water are finding their way into the digital public sphere. Violence monitoring by civil society has become easier, as mapping technology can be used to warn people about outbreaks of violence. Maps are being used to inform citizens about where to access medicines, and they may warn against shortages in access to essential treatment such as antiretrovirals. As a result of growing civil society usage of new media, mainstream media have a broader array of information to
draw on, and are able to take up issues that would not have otherwise have found their way into the public domain.

LINE-UP
The DCI line-up includes keynote speaker Dubissi Tande, a prolific blogger on African affairs, who will be speaking on the state of social justice digital media in Africa. Elia Varela Serra (Maneno.org) together with Bolivian Voices editor Eduardo Ávila Maneno will enlighten us on the ever pertinent topic of promoting indigenous languages in digital media. Another panel with Nthateng Mhlambiso (Behind the Mask) and Maureen Agena (Women of Uganda Network) focuses on gender, civil society and digital media.

Civil society’s use of mapping tools will be explored by Bobby Soriano (Tactical Tech), Brett Davidson (Stop Stockouts) and Ndesjano Macha (Global Voices). The ways in which technology can be used to promote activism around land, environment and health will be discussed with Stephan Hofstatter (freelance journalist), Peter Benjamin (Cell-Life), Ednah Karamagi (BROSDI) and Bobby Marie (Monitoring Action).

WORKSHOPS
DCI 4.0 this year offers six workshops to ensure that all delegates will, besides knowledge, take practical skills back home to assist communities with digital activism and social justice on a local level. The workshop titles are “Multimedia Tools for Journalism” (Peter Verweij, Hogeschool Utrecht), “Digital Voices to Reconstruct Communities” (Marlon Parker, CPUT), “Successful Podcasting” (Jayne Morgan, Podcart.co.za), “Mapping Tools for Civil Society Use” (Ndesanjo Macha, Global Voices), “Using Mobile Media for Social Change” (Peter Benjamin, Cell-Life) and “Bringing Down the Barriers with Interactive Audio Programming and Mobile Phones” (Brenda Burrell, Kubatana.net).

CONTACT US
Visit the DCI website (www.dcindaba.com) for live updates and more information.
You can also find us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dcindaba or use #DCI09 to search for DCI Tweets. Contact the DCI team via the website or email to dcindaba@gmail.com.

The newspapers I had a closer look at in Suriname are: De Ware Tijd, The Times of Suriname and Dagblad Suriname, in Guyana I bought Stabroek News and Kaieteur News.

Unfortunately the journalistic skills seem to still be very basic, there is a lack of investigative stories and stories are often unbalanced and not to the point. Besides some hints and tips I’ve compiled a list of story ideas, just some articles and topics that I thought are missing in the Guyanese papers. And yes, I am willing to travel back and write them all  

The list
-    STINASU (Suriname Nature Conservation): what are they doing about mismanagement in Bronsberg Nature Reserve and why are the people from Bronsweg village angry with the staff at the Reserve? Something smells fishy here…

-    What is being done about illegal gold and diamond mining in the interior? We spend four days in Bronsberg Nature Reserve and heard dynamite explosions and gun shots (apparently people are illegally hunting for bush meat)

-    Deeper into the interior, from say Atjoni onwards, there is a problem with safety regulations on the water. Boatmen are not supposed to be on the water after dark, it is too dangerous (especially with tourists and children), but this practice is still  happening

-    The fast flowing river is by many villages used as a waste bin. Great if you are one of the villages at the top of the river but not so nice when you are downstream. Plastic is an issue, make an investigative report about the situation as is and look at the long-term implications

-    Write about this little annoying habit of ‘bakra-tax’. This self-imposed tax means that white people have to pay a bit extra on groceries, clothing and booze. The habit is laughed at but becoming more of an issue with the increasing amounts of (white) tourists

-    Do a check-up on the health clinics in the interior: are there really runny smoothly? Do an investigation into malaria, dengue and other tropical disease

-    There is an increasing amount of Chinese people setting up shop in the interior. The villagers are happy because the Chinese food is cheaper but the Surinamese shopkeepers are struggling to make a living. There is a stunning emotional story to be written here

Educate and localise news
-    Try educate Surinamese people about animals and nature. There are many misconceptions. I can give one example, it took place in Nickerie. A local Rasta captured a young Anaconda while it was eating one of its chickens. Rasta people use the snake oil for medical treatments, so he kept it in a blue drum. As visitors we were allowed a peek into the drum. I asked a local onlooker “Is that an Anaconda?”, his answer was: “No, this is a waterboa, I have seen the movie Anaconda and those kind of snakes we don’t have here!”.  Ai

-    Surinam harbours an eclectic amount of cultural differences that need to be celebrated. Why not make a weekly portrait series (with good photographs) of the things that are normal to some and unknown to others. What I mean? Well, a portrait series of men who walk around with a little singing bird in a cage (and treat those better then their wives) or a series about old men sitting at the Waterkant discussing politics. Maybe portraits of a number of Chinese shopkeepers, people who keep monkeys as pets, tour operators, frustrated road workers, Brazilian gold diggers and street gangs

-    What about serious science stories? Rockets are being launched in neighbouring country French-Guyana, scientific research with remarkable results is done in nature reserves: write about the outcomes

-    Try to localise news. For instance, the news about the world economy and recession can easily be localised. Research the impact of the recession on Surinam or the Guyana’s on a big and small scale: the country’s economical growth and a shop owners’ turnover or people’s spending

-    In the case of Surinam, try to incorporate as many languages, peoples and cultures as possible. There are currently no newspapers who offer news in Chinese or news in Hindi. Also, there is not much (serious) news about China, India or Africa. Why not? You can also do a weekly immigrant’s profile

-    There is no explanation of political, economic and scientific terms. It is easy enough to highlight ten words used in the newspaper and to put them in a separate column (maybe on the puzzle page) with an explanation

-    Put citizens who are making a positive difference in the spotlight. A weekly profile with photo and small interview with that one person who has done something special to help the community

Involve your readers
-    Involve your readers by not just publishing their letters but also publishing short comments on previous articles and by involving them in choosing a citizen of the year, encourage them to send in photos and phone with news to a special hotline/ SMS number

-    Finally, as a journalist: get involved in your community, travel with local transport, visit the interior, keep networking and make sure you have good contacts with certain police and ministers and other key sources (and make sure they know it is you who makes the news, they can’t be writing their own articles).

All the newspapers have incredible potential but at the moment there is just not enough training and the budgets are too small. The above ideas might assist in unleashing some of the papers potential without costing to much effort and money.

Regards,
Elvira

We arrived in Djumu in the dark, the skilled boatsman new exactly what he was doing. I met Charles Vervuurd, the director of Apinti Television in Suriname in Bronsberg. He told me that he has been working on getting television into the interior and has just set up a station in Djumu. Charles gave me the number of Captain Albert (capitain is similar to a chief in South Africa, he is a bit like a the major of a town) who was extremely happy to hear that I’m a media trainer. His radio reporters (radio Mai Fei) needed some help.

At Djumu we found out that the TV station is actually at Asindo-opo. Not on our map. The boatsman took us there, we were greeted by Captain Albert and Beatrice who showed us our hut for the next days.

Surreal
Asindo-opo was just surreal. It looked fake. We walked out of our huts seeing the flowing river and another village on the other side. Mango trees lined the grass shore. Heaven. We washed ourselves in the river, explored the village, spoke to everyone who walked into us (people just wanted to find out who we are and why we are there) and ate our white rice (cooked in rain water) on the porch of our hut. Its a very natural way of living, very satisfying.

The media training at radio Mai Fei took from 10am to 10pm. Basic journalism skills, radio production and a computer class…there was a lot to cover. I managed, even though it was very hot and the language barrier slowed us down. It was a great experience that I am willing to take to the next level if it is possible to combine some of the work that needs to be done at Mai Fei with my work at the School of Journalism in Utrecht… Just thinking about possibilities…

We’ve spend some time in Paramaribo now, also visiting Parbode (a local opinion magazine) where some of my previous students are working on a journalism project for 12 days. It was good to see Casper and Timon again, well done guys!

If anyone has ideas about setting up a media project in Asindo-opo / the Surinamese interior, please contact me.

Elvira