“Jeremiah was a bullfrog…” (16/03/2008)

Well here I am, sitting at the Port Elizabeth airport. Again. At least this time I’m not rushing off to a funeral. The last time I flew out of here was on November 12, 2007. The day my father passed away.

Strange that I start thinking about this again. It’s probably got to be because of the song I’m listening to.

For years my dad sang a particular song – just the opening two lines, because he could never remember the rest of it. Or what it was called. He would wander up and down the passage in his faded blue rugby shorts, singing at the top of his voice. Just the first two lines

A few months after my dad fell into the coma (he remained in the coma for fourteen and a half months before his body finally gave up) I came back to my digs to hear Mike, my best friend and digsmate, playing this song that my dad always used to sing. And now, Dad, I know the next line. And what it’s called.

Jeremiah was a bullfrog
He was a good friend of mine
I never understood a single word he said
But I helped him drink his wine
And he always had some mighty fine wine
                                          ~ Joy to the World by Three Dog Night

It was only after my father fell into a vegitative state that I realised there was so much I still wanted to ask him. One of the most serious errors we make as children is to assume that our parents will be around forever, and in doing so we take them for granted. And now that he’s gone, I’ll never get him back.

I have no father for my 21st birthday, no father to walk me down the aisle or advise me on parenting. No father to sit at my graduation and beam with pride, no father to cry with me when I break up with my boyfriend.

Well, here’s to my last holiday in this town, as well as the first time I shall meet my mother’s new boyfriend. The woman moves on quickly.

I’m a high-life flyer and a rainbow rider, a straight-shooting son-of-a-gun

Breaking the habit

You just know it’s going to be one of those days, when mid-morning you find out that your reporter overslept and missed the biggest story of the year.

I’m not going into details – story pending, of course – but this reporter (allegedly) overslept and definitely missed the one-time-only interview given by a Certain Woman on a Certain Topic. Let’s just say, when this story breaks, it’s going to be big. And we missed it.

So what to do now? Do my editor and I go grovel in front of the Woman’s desk? Apologise for the obscene unprofessionalism, tell her the guy is on crack and we’ll deal with it? Probably. All to keep good relations of course, and with the hope she’ll keep sending good stories our way.

This brings me to my point of the post: how do you deal with unprofessionalism in student media?  This is my fourth year at Activate, having signed up for the Features and sub-editing teams in my first year, when I was still all bright-eyed and bushy tailed. Convinced I was going to change the world with That One Story.

Since my first-year, I have been nothing but professional. I attended meetings regularly, organised and planned interviews ahead of time, proof-read stories a thousand times, handed them in in time, and accepted criticism where criticism was due. I quickly moved up the ranks – becoming Features editor in my second year, and deputy editor in my third year.

The people we have at the moment lack the somewhat freakish drive I had in my youth. Stories are late, incomplete, biased, and frankly – awful. People seemed to have stopped caring. And as a student media leader, what can I do? Whack them over the heads (gently) with a rolled up newspaper? See, you can’t hit them too hard because that would be Assault and the Dean of Students would have you out in a minute. You can give them a warning, hold a disciplinary hearing – but Activate works on volunteers alone, and so one mention of any disciplinary action and they scarper, never to be seen or heard from again.

So what do you do? Dangle the threat of The Real World over their heads? Try and convince them that when they actually enter the Real World they can’t hand in stories a week late, without proper research and with minimal comments? Well, you can try, but they all seem to look at you and go: “So?”

It comes down to this. Although Rhodes tries to be an institute “Where leaders learn”, nobody seems to be willing to learn. The majority of people seem to cruise through on a case of beer a weekend and a quick Google search forming the basis of their 1000 word feature. And yes, I generalise. I know this.

And it’s left to four or five of us each paste-up weekend (two subbies, my editor and myself) to clean up the content and correct things that simply pressing F7 in Microsoft Word would fix.

Where Leaders Learn. Unfortunately it’s only the leaders who are learning. The rest are content to simply cruise.

All you can learn is what you already know

Wow, so it’s only my second post and I am already preparing for a rant. Good times.

 I work on Activate one of Rhodes University’s student newspapers, as the deputy editor.

The biggest news of the past two or three weeks has been a change of venue for our annual intervarsity (we call it Tri-Varsity). This is a sporting event, across a number of sporting codes, and is held between Rhodes, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU – previously the University of Port Elizabeth) and Fort Hare . This year, Rhodes was due to host the event (which meant lots of partying for Rhodes students).

So imagine everyone’s surprise when a “Save Tri-Varsity” meeting was called. This meeting, as part of the “Alcohol Awareness Week” was intended to address the alcohol-related misbehaviours of Rhodes students at Tri-Varsity, and their tendency to end up comatose in a pool of vomit, streaking across the sportsfield or being assaulted by security guards.

Activate sent two reporters to the meeting, and they dutiful reported it.

Part of the meeting saw the SRC president address the fact that the majority of students in attendance at the meeting were white students. Note: he said it. And he questioned why black students aren’t as into the whole Tri-Varsity thing as the white students. Again: he said it.

We ran the story, having focused the majority of the story on the alcohol-related issues surrounding Rhodes students and Tri-Varsity, and dealing with the SRC president’s comment in the last two paragraphs. We also ran a poll: “Would you go to Tri-Varsity at Fort Hare?”

Now here’s the problem. Fort Hare is  stereotyped as an “underpriveleged” and “black” university by a number of people. Yes, this is true. After the story ran on Thursday, we received a number of complaints suggesting that we were “racist” and making this a “race and a class issue”. Our article, apparently, implied that Activate did not feel that Fort Hare was capable of hosting such an event, because it is traditionally black university. And the question we posed in the poll was improper.

Wow, I love student media.

We had never intended for the poll to be a reflection on whether we thought that Fort Hare could or could not host Tri-Varsity. It was not a group of white women sitting in the office saying “I bet you no one will go there because it’s like, a black university”. Not at all. It was asked more from the point of view of ”Would you drive for two to three hours to get to Fort Hare?” Would we have run it if it was decided that NMMU would host it for the second year running? Most likely. Yes, perhaps we could have clarified the poll more. I completely understand. But I also don’t want to have to scrutinise everything and think “Could this possibly be seen as racist?” 

And now you can all string me up from a tree for saying this, but I feel certain individuals are honestly over-sensitive to the race issue. I wrote a story last year, and in it was the phrase “a dark figure behind a torch”. And the crowds went savage. Dude, I’m a dark figure behind a torch, and I’m pale and blonde. But no, it MUST have been racist, screamed the crowds. Oi vey. 

And would I go to Tri-Varsity at Fort Hare? Nope. I wouldn’t even go to the one in Port Elizabeth. Why? I don’t have a car.

Oh, and I changed my template. This one is so much prettier, and hopefully I’ll change the images soon. Don’t worry, I’m not crazy. The last template had grey and white and sad faces and flowers and suns. It wasn’t all just in my head.

Shadow of the Day

And so I have been motivated to start another blog, hopefully one that I will keep up with more regularly.

So much has changed over the last year that I don’t quite know who or what I am anymore. What I do know is that I still am, and that is probably a good thing.

I’ve had two deaths in the family, I’ve moved my digs, I’ve experienced a breakup, and I’m running a newspaper. Each experience builds on top of the other until some days I feel that the next thing may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

I look at the template I chose for this blog, compared to the other. The other was lighter, brighter, more open. And now I am drawn to the darker templates – black, white and greys. Cheerful, isn’t it? I like the flowers, though. And the sun. The little sad face doesn’t quite do it for me, but there you go.

Anyway, now it begins, this journey into 2008. I will write from all my different perspectives: a woman, a daughter, a deputy editor, a new media student.

Good luck to you.
Candace