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Acornhoek, the no-spin zone
By Lou Manzo
Formerly of the South End News
The nuts and bolts of community journalism in the small rural community of Acornhoek, South Africa are the same as Boston’s South End. What’s different is everything else.
The newsroom of The Villager is open air, allowing for a cool breeze to sweep through the office in the afternoon. The reporters are all female and black. Giraffes, warthogs and impala graze in the fields. Last week one of our reporters covered the murder of a local man—at the jaws of a hippo.
The Villager is published by Amazwi—“voices” in Zulu—a two-year-old NGO working to empower and educate female voices in rural South Africa through media arts.
My role there straddles two worlds. I manage the internet site—providing a window into the world of rural South African life for those outside the community—and I also work with the women on their reporting—stepping back into a different era. While some people have cell phones, there are no directories. Tracking stories necessitates fieldwork that is both frustrating and refreshing at once. Some chiefs, for example, don’t yet feel it’s necessary to answer our female reporters. In other ways, this is a land that journalists can only dream of at home.
There are no public relations firms, no spokespersons and no “off the record” rants. Interviews are refreshing for their candor. It’s truly the no-spin zone.
Every workday, our reporters’ stories are sharper, more focused and more in depth. That is not to say that the writing process is easy. English is the third language for our reporters and most interviews are conducted in Tsonga or Sesotho and then retranslated into English. With no local media, there is nothing natural about writing newspaper reports, because newspapers are a foreign entity.
Despite that, the community recognizes the significance of the Villager.
In a small way perhaps, the paper is changing the economics, politics and culture of the region. By providing inexpensive advertising to small and micro businesses, the Villager spurs the local economy. The man who repairs cell phones on his stoop can now expand his clientele by other means than word of mouth.
Politically, our journalists bring attention to rural South Africa where there is a total news vacuum. Our journalists expose inequalities, corruption and daily life to the country as a whole. In the process they reconstruct political power structures, which are centered almost exclusively in the cities.
The male dominated culture is changing as well. As professional women, our journalists are role models for young women in a society where women have few career possibilities. They also are changing the perceptions of men who regard women’s exclusive role as mothers.
Lou Manzo recently moved from the South End News to South Africa to work for Amazwi.
Last year, four teachers, from the UK, Australia and US, taught in the Amazwi School for Media Arts. They worked with unemployed female high school graduates to sharpen their English language skills and prepare them for careers in journalism. Of the 12 women who graduated, ten now have jobs in communication. Five of those 10 stayed on to work at the Villager, which in 2008 is transitioning from a student to a professional publication.
Joining founding director Maggie Messitt are three new long-term volunteers, two from the U.S. and one from South Africa. Daniela Cohen, who taught English as a second language for seven years, manages the finances of the NGO and works with the reporters on their English language skills. Briget Ganske and Manzo are the editors for the Villager. They mentor the women through the writing process and work with them in the field.
Check out Amazwi.org
