“Social Responsibility” meets “Journalism” for the first time in three years ~ *gwen**

Growing up devouring The National Geographic I had always had the idea that journalists went out of their way to make a constructive difference in society. My illusion was harshly shattered when I began studying at what is considered to be one of the most prestigious Journalism Schools in South Africa – Rhodes University’s African Media Matrix.

The Journalism and Media Studies courses thus far have all been mainstream, requiring one to go in, cover the story, use the people, glean as much fact from fiction and leave to write the story to earn your salary (of which your source gets no benefits, yet alone another thought)! Yip, this is the callous reality of journalism. But the CMP course opened up another ally way, one that I had been seeking since I first arrived – one with a greater vision, a greater social responsibility and a greater value of being a human – “Public Journalism”!
Taking up what Haas terms as our “social responsibility” it was not only the people we were in contact with who reaped the benefits – but so too, surprisingly, us! The emotional joy in the peoples’ faces was evident as we walked down Sani Road, in Extension 6 with thick, black, plastic packets gathering the litter that they had come to accept as part of their environment. It wasn’t so much about the fact that we had Nik Naks but it was about self worth, the reality that together we were making a stance that nobody should live in these conditions! Okay, maybe Nik Naks did play a larger role than I would like to attribute… and I’ll console myself in the fact that it was just to the kids… who having helped with the litter sweep, and grinning through their artificial orange, crumbed faces they continued to drop their Nik Nak packets, displaying the society they have grown up in! This just shows the lack of public journalism in South Africa. There is a huge potential and a great need for it to flourish! From this project we learnt that we have to come up with sustainable ways in which the community can help themselves – and our role, as journalists should be to mobilize and empower the citizens, installing the catalysts for positive change! It was through the CMP course that I realised the impact I have in media output in today’s mediated society. This calls you to think of ones motives, gains and values in production – for these can either make or break society.

This brings in the much argued “ethics of journalism”. Is there a place in society for the stark, supposedly “objective” “professional” journalism when there is so many who are crying out for their voices to be heard? What articles do people profit the most from in a daily tabloid – the bland fact only, hard news articles where the name on a page is exactly that, a name on a page – or, in contrast the more subjective articles where that name on a page becomes an actual human being, like you and me with emotions, feelings and needs. Needs that you could potentially fill!