Students speak out about the politics of hair
Spotlight
About this page
Never in history has it been so easy to accumulate information. A vast sea of stories flows ceaselessly through the devices at our fingertips. But some days I feel I am drowning in data that does not help me understand the world any better.
Edward R Murrow’s warning about TV in 1958 could just as well be applied to all our modern information sources:
“This instrument can teach. It can illuminate and, yes, it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it towards those ends. Otherwise, it is merely wires and lights in a box.”
It is what we do with the information at our disposal that determines our destiny.
I once had a news editor when I worked on a small broadsheet newspaper in Cape Town who would cut me down to size by reminding me that my feverish efforts at storytelling would soon be “fish n’chips wrapper”. Undeterred I sat at my Olivetti typewriter for hours until I was happy with the stories.
In 2014 when we launched The Journalist we had a section called News. Our aim was and is to explore the meaning behind the lights and wires. To avoid at all costs becoming electronic ‘fish n’chips wrapper’.
Since then, we have chosen to rework this section of our website and in line with our updated approach it is called SPOTLIGHT. It is a name that evokes images of performers plucked out of the darkness of the stage and bathed in light so that the audience can revel in their artistry.
Spotlight will feature the artistry of our finest writers. Their brief will be simple. Don’t merely tell us what happened. Help us understand why.
If you have an idea for a Spotlight story please engage in the discussion or use the Contact Us page to write and let us know what you are thinking.
If we are indeed the end result of all the stories we’ve heard, as Tim Knight says, choose carefully. The Journalist is committed to help you make that choice and to shed light on the 21st Century clutter.
Hlaudi must fall
But the debate on violence in newscasts must rise
Mourning Women’s Month
#RememberKhwezi and #RuReferenceList protests speak volumes
Praise for The Journalist during our birthday month
A valuable resource and a place for meaningful debate
Bringing home the medals
Effort in Rio was best since 1920
Saying farewell to Jansen
Dr Khotso Mokhele reflects
‘SABC a microcosm of our problems as a nation’
I have been a journalist since 1975 and it has taken me until very recently to tell the most important story of all… Who am I really? This is not a question I would have dared ask at any point in my career. There was an unwritten understanding that there was no interest and no audience for the answers. The mainstream media in South Africa has been the first defence in the bastion of lies that propped up the colonial – and sometimes even post-colonial – version of my story. And so I began to...
Post-apartheid generation light up Olympic stage
South African stars to look out for at the Olympics
Top picks for our second birthday
This month marks the second birthday of The Journalist, and to celebrate we dig deep into our archives and bring you our top six articles as follows; a controversial speech by Stellenbosch university alumnus, Lovelyn Nwadeyi, which made waves among the establishment; a report on why the apartheid era dealings of corporates like Naspers went unchecked at the Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) hearings; The story of a local scientist who has a solar system named after him and the pioneer of...
“You strike a woman, you strike a rock!”
Throughout history, women have had to fight for their place in society
Albie Sachs praises young writers for local governance series
Articles in The Journalist “reached through” to struggle veteran
Local elections show that South Africa’s women continue to play second fiddle
The recent municipal elections do not show that political parties consider women’s issues relevant or important. Sixty years after women marched on Pretoria and 22 years after the first democratic elections there are no visible champions of women’s rights. In fact, the gains that have been made risk being rolled back. Progress from 1956 to democracy The first moment of women’s mass political mobilisation as women was through the Federation of South African Women (Fedsaw), inaugurated in 1954...
A shallow local democracy
Ward 63: We go to the polls without answers to important questions
The United Nation’s “Blue Angels”
African women in aviation are trailblazers
Decolonisation by Data
A New Agenda for South African Social Science
Battling it out with words
Debate a potent agent of transformation and growth
Pressure to publish is choking the academic profession
‘Publish or perish’
Charlotte Maxeke written back into history
First black woman graduate in South Africa
In Search of Bessie Head
Public Memorialising through Theatre
A suburb of immense diversity
Ward 67, Yeoville, Johannesburg, Gauteng Province
Serving the politically and biologically connected?
Ward 35, QwaQwa, Free State
Bringing peace when there is disagreement
Ward 13, Malamulele, Limpopo Province
Town boosted by solar and wind farms
As the local government elections approach, journalism students from the universities of Free State and Johannesburg have taken time out to connect with their roots and take a deeper look at the state of affairs in their respective communities. Werner Smith from De Aar in the Northern Cape, reflects. In central South Africa you will find the town of De Aar. This is the place I call home and falls in the Northern Cape Province. For election purposes it is described as Ward 5. The town used to...
The untold true story of Thokozani Village
Ward 19, Thokozani, Mpumalanga
About Us
The Journalist is a ground-breaking media project that provides history and context for key issues facing South African journalists. The Journalist is an independent, not for profit organisation working with the academic community and a range of credible online entities to make knowledge more accessible to the wider public. We don’t only tell you what happened. We help you understand why.
Our Partners
Republish Articles
We want our stories spread far and wide. Feel free to republish our articles, but please credit our writers and authors and credit The Journalist at the top or bottom of the article complete with a hyperlink back to the site.
Donate
The Journalist is a non-profit organisation and relies on public funding. Please consider donating to ensure more issues in the future.
Account name: The Journalist / Bank: Standard Bank
Branch Code: 026209 / Account number: 270320830
