Ward 19, East London, Eastern Cape
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.
Ikhaya lam lise Sterkspruit
Ward 10, Sterkspruit, Eastern Cape
Some progress, but still not much to choose from
Ward 13, Thembalethu, George, Western Cape
A six hour journey to vote
Ward 6, White City, Postmasburg
The place I call home
Ward 33, Molapo, Soweto, Gauteng
It’s Municipal election season!
The past, present and the future of local government
Index tells story of SA’s social progress
In our mid-month edition, we carry this thought-provoking column by Pierre Heistein, which first appeared in Business Report. Last week came with the release of this year’s Social Progress index and once again, South Africa didn’t fail to make life difficult for anyone trying to measure quality of life. The index measures a number of indicators – both economic and social – and compares countries to their closest peers in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. In South Africa’s case...
Jimi’s resignation is a wake up call
On Monday, the Acting CEO of the SABC, Jimi Matthews, resigned with immediate effect in protest against deteriorating journalistic conditions at the public broadcaster. His unexpected resignation and his admission that he had incorrectly thought he could make a difference by remaining at the corporation adds many nails into the coffin of the present leadership. He is one of the country’s most experienced and outstanding broadcast journalists. Pre-1990, the SABC was an authoritarian top down...
UFS language policy challenged in court
The Journalist reporters
The UKZN Griot. Of Publics and Populism
Keyan Tomaselli Academics can change the world. But there is a rider, says Savo Heleta, in The Conversation. Academics must stop talking (only) to their peers. Heleta’s post elicited the usual rambling responses, mostly missing the point, plus one connecting the story with my February Griot column. Heleta observes that academics are not rewarded for engaging with the public. Rather, academics are unrelentingly chased by their increasingly remote managers to publish. They are unrewarded when...
Teaching ‘economics as if people matter(ed)’
UCT course implies Africans have made no contribution to knowledge creation
Taking free public higher education from pipe dream to reality
Universities are any nation’s key public institutions of knowledge development. They drive research, teach students and supervise postgraduates. By producing and disseminating knowledge, universities can fulfil their mandate as institutions of social, economic, cultural and intellectual development for democratic societies and the global environment. It’s not easy to reconcile the costs of education with narrow economic goals alone. The remit of education is simultaneously individual, social...
The struggle of the Chagossian People
45 years since their eviction from their island home by the USA and Britain
Brexit: it’s the worst possible time to quit
The United Kingdom’s referendum last week, on the decision to leave the European Union sent shockwaves throughout the world. UK voters made their voices heard and what followed was a weakened Pound, and British Prime Minister David Cameron announcing his resignation. Tim Knight recalls the bloody wars of Europe and what Brexit means for peace in the region. Just four years ago the European Union (EU) was awarded the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize for advancing the causes of peace,...
The Blessee and the Damned
The term on everyone’s lips and fingertips
The class of 1976 – reflections from the Cape
‘There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come’.
June 16, 1976 changed the working life of SA journalists
The year 1976 will always be remembered as the year when the schoolchildren of Soweto rose up against Apartheid education. Interestingly, it was also the year when television first came to South Africa. ENCA television anchor, Freek Robinson was a junior reporter at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) television at the time. He recalled that at the end of the first day of the uprising on June 16, 1976, the newsroom was fully aware that the schoolchildren were marching against...
“Be Muhammad Ali today- speak truth to power”
Rabbi Michael Lerner’s full speech during memorial service for the late icon
“It was as if the world was coming to an end”
Journalists and activists remember June 16
UHURU Now: Grahamstown: the city of saints and sinners
“The Kings decree that we must work and die”
Africa focus on industrialisation
Climbing the ladder of economic development
Africa’s hidden history emerges
“Knowledge about the continent provides strong transformative power”
The Journalist welcomes Africa’s youngest media mogul on board
Allegro Dinkwanyane joins the team.
The politics of rage puts South Africa’s gains in danger
These are difficult days. All around us there are multiple manifestations of the politics of rage. Our strikes are violent, as are our service delivery protests. Student ferment has been on the rise, and has in many cases also turned violent. Our public discourse and electoral campaign rhetoric are similarly replete with militaristic language and violent imagery. The rage is of course understandable. Many have warned us for a long time that the extreme levels of inequality, which have only...
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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.
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