Shocking revelations made at the PIC inquiry and it’s only just begun
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.
Rooibos Roots and the search for justice
Wupperthal rising from the ashes
The Invocation of Krotoa
The arts and restorative justice
What’s holding back e-commerce in South Africa?
Online shopping must be easy, dependable and safe
How the SKA is helping South Africa
Northern Cape towns benefit from one of the world’s largest astronomy projects
Ready or not, a new world is upon us
Davos, Ramaphosa and the Fourth Industrial Revolution
50 years on and no justice for Imam Haron’s family
Imam’s children to launch campaign in remembrance of their father and six others who were killed in detention in 1969
Finding common ground in foreign land
Using literature to break down boundaries
One for the books: Abantu’s bookstore and publishing house
Founder and director of the Abantu book festival, Thando Mgqolozana, spoke to The Journalist about the festival’s bookstore and publishing wing and the role they will come to play in the future of the growing book festival. In 2015 at the Franschhoek Literary Festival, acclaimed novelist Thando Mgqolozana stood up and opted out, he brandished the festival a space that excludes black writers. “I’m quitting what I call the white literary system in South Africa,” he said at the time while the...
Abantu Kid’s Zone: Let the children play
The children’s faces light up when they see characters that look like them, with names that are similar to theirs
The demon that is self-publishing
Selling books from the boot of a car
For the record: archivists abound at Abantu
The Journalist’s dynamic partnership with Abantu Book Festival
Starstruck: Abantu festival first timer
Thando Mgqolozana deserves a standing ovation
Musa’s fun at Abantu’s Kids Zone
I think more children must come to Abantu next year
Abantu Book Festival: nothing short of an introspective space
“Europe is irrelevant to our history”
Saartjie Baartman’s final resting place
Baartman cried out repeatedly to be taken home, and her cries have reverberated through the centuries
The law and dispossession from a black perspective
Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, author of The Land is Ours: Black Lawyers and the Birth of Constitutionalism in South Africa was in discussion with Nolundi Luwaya, customary law scholar and researcher at UCT's Centre for Law and Society, at Abantu Book Festival on Saturday 8 December 2018. He talked about the land question and how South Africa’s current legal system, which has roots in oppressive colonial policies, is being re-imagined. Land is a hot topic at the moment, especially on the...
Born To Kwaito: Reflections on the Kwaito Generation
Setting the kwaito record straight
Abantu Book Festival: “We are also human”
History needs to be revisited
Create, don’t react
The Journalist encourages its writers to find their own voices
Chimamanda on feminism, first ladies and fiction
“My feminism is rooted in my great grandmother, who was headstrong”
Coconuts can’t be trusted with the revolution
Breaking the rainbow at Abantu Book Festival
Book extract: House of Stone
Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s debut novel
House of Stone re-imagines a collective home
“This is my love letter to Zimbabwe; even if it’s biting”
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.
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