As we enter the final quarter of the year things are about to get busy and this can be seen in the amount of activity from our cohort of participants.
Food for Mzansi launches a TV show
Digital agri-news platform Food For Mzansi set out into a new frontier, with the launch of their TV show Vir die Liefde van die Land (“For the love of the land”). The show is hosted by FFM co-founder Ivor Price and agri-business manager Piet Potgieter, and is broadcast on DSTV. [LINK: https://www.foodformzansi.co.za/it-took-him-50-years-to-grow-from-labourer-to-farmer/
Tackling race in the media
#SMWX founder Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh has partnered with SAMIP to produce a four-part YouTube series unpacking issues of race in the media. The first two episodes featured journalist and media scholar Pontsho Pilane, and political analyst Eusebius McKaiser:
#SMWX is a video channel focusing on politics, culture and current affairs from a youth perspective. Mpofu-Walsh appeared on eNCA to discuss the ongoing video series.
The future of podcasting in Africa?
The World Association of Newspapers’ (WAN-IFRA) write-up on the growth of podcasting in Africa features the work of two podcasting outlets in the SAMIP family: Volume co-founder Paul McNally and Shandukani Mulaudzi, a producer for Children’s Radio Foundation. The two joined a panel discussion on the topic at WAN-IFRA’s Digital Media Africa conference last month. [LINK: https://blog.wan-ifra.org/2020/10/05/how-podcasting-is-developing-in-africa]
Both Volume and Children’s Radio Foundation also featured in the latest edition of The Podcast Sessions magazine, in an article on strategies for financing podcasting businesses in South Africa and beyond.
Bringing news to new mobile audiences
Scrolla, a bilingual (isiZulu and English) mobile-first news platform has continued delivering local and international news to under-served audiences: from the trial of a policewoman charged with killing family members for insurance fraud, to a teen in Nigeria who builds cardboard superhero outfits went viral on social media.
Stokvel Talk goes back to the printing press
Stokvel Talk, a media company serving members of the South African financial cooperatives known as stokvels, has returned to a print edition of its free community newspaper. For the past few months, the company had focused on publishing digital editions of the newspaper, due to Covid-19 lockdown restrictions. While Stokvel Talk has demonstrated it can successfully pivot to digital, the resumption of printing is a hopeful sign for South Africa’s return to a new normal.
Data stories: how coronavirus spread through SA
Data journalism outfit Media Hack Collective has turned their months of Covid-19 data into an interactive timeline on how the pandemic spread through South Africa. It was published by health reporting group Bhekisisa, and Health24.
Championing women’s voices
Last week QuoteThisWoman+ director Kathy Magrobi spoke at the African Investigative Journalism Conference 2020 in a session on the challenges facing women investigative reporters.
In its ‘Our Voices’ newsletter series, QW+ team member Christina Schild wrote a moving piece about a series of artworks about gender-based violence by Capetonian artist Emma Leslie. Lizette Rabe, a member of the QW+ community of experts, published a piece on the importance of mental health, marking Mental Health Awareness Month.
Tips and resources from the SAMIP family
• Volume’s latest newsletter includes lessons on creating quality podcasts and audio voiceovers in a pandemic – read it here and subscribe at volume.africa.
• Children’s Radio Foundation has produced a toolkit on tackling Covid-19 stigma, to help its youth reporters and radio stations in how they cover the pandemic, and a toolkit on its approach to Remote Outreach and Campaigns to 16 community radio stations.
• Youth outlet The Daily Vox published a handy guide to “fighting fake news on the family WhatsApp group”