CMP Critical Evaluation
by Dianne Jordan and Angelique Thorne
The driving force of Haas’s public philosophy for public journalism revolves around the idea that public journalists should open and sustain a public sphere wherein all citizens will have a say – thus creating a deliberating public. In order to do this, Haas states that a public journalist should make their agenda clear and encourage a dialectic relationship between the two. Upon implementing theory into practice this term, many of our peers voiced their opinions of exploiting various sectors of the greater Grahamstown community for our own good. We were concerned that we were expected to go into the community and get what we needed to complete our degree. And even if some us wanted to make a difference, many felt that the above is what the community would think we were doing and thus would restrict the amount of material we could work with.
In terms of our experiences of working with the army base as our source of material, establishing the dialectic relationship that Haas emphasises proved difficult to begin with. The reason for this, is due to the fact that the army is a national service, there are certain barriers put in place that keeps any kind of media away. By employing Haas’s technique of making our agenda known, the dialectic relationship began to grow. We originally made contact with the communications officer, who put us in touch with all the right people. We had to make an appointment with the Officer in Command so as to inform him of exactly what is was that we were intending on doing. Originally, most individuals were understandably sceptical as even though we were just students, we were associated with the media, which in their eyes, could result in negative output.
Eventually, once we had been around the base a few times, spoken with various individuals and allowed the OC to watch our first soundslide, we had developed a trusting and dialectic relationship between ourselves and various important individuals in the army. Through deliberations with these various individuals, it became clear to us that the army would like to establish a relationship with Rhodes University. Thus, we feel that by employing public journalistic methods, we gained a great deal in terms of establishing a relationship between the army and the greater Grahamstown community, even though it starts with the two of us.
As mentioned above, what seemed to be the primary concern of our class – that of going into the community, exploiting citizens for their ideas and then leaving – formed part of our main concern as well. We did not want the army to think that we were going in there to uncover malpractices or anything that would cast them in a negative light. Thus, when we approached the army, we gave the same informative speech to everyone, just to make sure that nobody was misguided. This aspect, in a way, impacted the way we were used to doing journalism. Previously, we would tell a source just what they needed to know so that we could get our information and then leave it at that, whereas in employing the public journalism method, we exhaustively informed every possible source of what we intended on doing. This approached yielded fruitful results as many responded positively to our cause.
The army pointed out, that many a time, they have been stigmatised and stereotyped, partly because they are a self-sufficient community tucked away up on a hill overlooking Grahamstown, and partly because citizens are frightened by them. This course sparked the desire to help stigmatised, stratified and isolated communities. Suddenly, we were able to see that our journalistic output had the ability to change people’s lives. This course highlighted the fact that we were no longer to act as an outsider reporting on an issue, but to get on the inside via reflective face-to-face deliberation with citizens in an open public sphere, working with the community (instead of removed from it) to bring about a plausible solution through our journalistic work.
This course involved us getting our hands dirty. In this respect, it changed the way we perceived and produced journalism, showing us that our work actually has meaning. This in turn motivated us to get the facts right, and to put an angle to the story that would provoke public opinion and public problem solving. In our case, this means allowing the community to see the soldiers in the army as people. People who serve them. People that want to work with the community.
Our above objectives stemmed from the army’s desire to engage with the community. The greater Grahamstown area sees the army base as foreign, secluded bubble. This thus affects the community’s willingness to participate in engagement with the community. Therefore, our main objective of our first soundslide, was to detail what it is to be a soldier and how they fair in the transition from civilian to soldier. We feel that these objectives were realistic, as through the relationship we developed with the communications officer over the past couple of weeks, we developed a trusting relationship with strong sources which we intend to include in our final output.
Our first journalistic product for this course was our 2-3 minute soundslide, “From civilian to soldier”. It details Roydan, the communications officer’s, transition from being a normal citizen (a “civilian”, according to the army) to a soldier. It explores how he adapted to the stringent rules and guidelines that the soldiers live by, the respect a soldier must have and the meaning of a soldier’s beret. This story attains our original objective of educating the community of what it means to be a soldier – coming from the perspective of someone who was originally a Grahamstown resident who then became a soldier.
Our journalism is developmental in the way that it educates the greater community not only what it’s like to be a soldier but also a Grahamstown resident, but also what it is exactly that the army does. In this way, it enhances the development of the community as it furthers understanding by depicting and explaining what the army is, how it functions and why it’s there. For instance, there is a sequence in our first soundslide showing the audience a snip bit of a parade. The visuals show soldiers in formation taking off their berets to pray and then putting them back on while the audio has Roydan explaining the prerequisite of respect for tradition and protocol in the army.
The piece that we have produced is alternate to what has recently been in the media about 6 SAI Battalion. Recent media coverage of the base has been negative detailing soldiers being either unruly in the township or being stabbed to death by a civilian. Thus, our coverage is alternative in contrast to what has already been covered and produced by Grahamstown media. Our coverage puts the army in a more positive and informative light.
To begin with, we did not have a definite idea of who our target audience would be as we basically went into the army environment having no idea what their issues were or what these issues involved. After talking to a few people in the army as well as consulting with various lecturers, we found that there was a variety of topics that we could focus on. These various topics had either one of two or both audiences – the army or the greater Grahamstown community. Once we had established what area we wanted to focus on and what our objectives for the piece were, it became clearer how to structure the sound slide. We used a colloquial language as it was familiar to both the soldiers in the army and the community. Our visuals and audio adopted the familiar army style, with a black and dark green introduction slide and an appropriate bed track with noises from one of the parades we witnessed a few weeks ago. We found this to be the most audience appropriate way of styling and putting the piece together as it set the tone for the piece as well as presented itself in an informative manner.
This piece is something our audience would never have seen before. And if they had seen something like it, it would not have been within their immediate surroundings. Often residents of Grahamstown will hear explosions coming from the base but they will never actually connect with what is actually happening. This media product provides the bridge between what citizen’s stereotyped ideas of the army and what the army actually is and who the people are that make up the army. The main thread of the story focuses on transition. This shows our audience that soldiers were once people just like them, and so, they are not the simply foreign camouflage-clad soldiers that they run into at Peppergrove Mall in town.
This direction in our story has a strong lead that came from the idea the community has of soldiers being different and alien to them. As mentioned above, our coverage of the army aims to show the community the opposite of their assumptions. We aim to show the community, that in fact, the soldiers at 6 SAI Battalion are people just like them, and that the only difference is that they aim to serve not only Grahamstown, but South Africa. Thus, we had a clear focus that was particular to our audience in mind, that is what it meant to be a soldier and how a individuals endure the transition from civilian to soldier.
The way in which we gathered our research was by various means. First and foremost, our research and feeling for the army was gathered by first-hand observation. The army, even to us as students is unknown and thus in order to get the correct “feel” for the piece, a lot of the time we just observed. This was also due to the fact that there are all sorts of boundaries in the army, boundaries which we could only overcome by developing a relationship with the powers that be.
Our second means of research gathering were the interview and “chats” we had with various authorities in the army and soldiers. A lot of the times, these conversations were not recorded so that we could establish a firm rapport with various individuals. We also found some of our information from the monthly army newsletter, which we could have very well not stumbled across, had we not established the above mentioned rapport with individuals operating in the army. The National Defence Force serves to protect the entire country and therefore the interaction the soldiers have with civilians relates to the South African community in its entirety – allowing this story to transcend beyond the borders of Grahamstown.
In our first soundslide, we have used army-specific sources. The reason being is that we wanted to tell the story from the army point of view. Bringing in other sources at this point would have jeopardised our objectives for this phase of the story. We have established a firm participatory relationship with our sources. Often, our sources have been the ones to give the direction of a segment in our story. We have also agreed to help establish a relationship between the army and our university. This establishment has led to a positive participatory relationship in which we can deliberate. Our aim for the next addition to the story is to include and possibly contrast what the community thinks of the army and how this aligns with or differs from the ideas and narratives we have documented in our first piece.
