Croak

Jozi: Siting up in bed, this is way past my bedtime. I'm beyond exhausted, but, unusually, my head won't switch off, at all.
I'm in the upstairs room of one of my favourite places to stay, except that through the wide open summer-night window I can distinctly hear a one-frog band rasp-croaking way too loudly.
Waiting for the small piece of sleeping tablet to kick in, because I need a rested brain. And I need to hey back to centre. It's been a harrowing week.
I'm working on a story that I need to get as near to perfect. It's about a schoolyard bully, but a fully grown one. One that has threatened to break my legs. Both of them.
The story is to be my lead for the November issue. Although we're a few days late, I made the decision to take the pressure off myself - it's my paper after all - and to delay it further, while I get more meat into the story pot.
And because of the intimidation, to tell you the truth, I've taken a bit of a hammering...so my aim is carry on telling the truth, even if my voice quavers.
And, in the background, I thoroughly enjoyed the three intense days of the Power Reporting African Investigative Journalist Conference.
As a direct result of it, I've some great collaborators backing me up.
And now to turn in.
Night night world.

Wednesday night's lunar eclipse

These are photos - by Waterval Boven-based Gustav Janse van Rensburg (who often contributes the finest photos to the Highlands Herald) - of Wednesday night's lunar eclipse.
Taken on the edge of Mpumalanga's escarpment, not far from Waterval Boven, these photos emphasise the magnificence of our night sky, especially where there is so little light pollution, and where the winter night's air is crystal sharp.
Pics: Gusography (082) 753 3695

Happiness

Happiness is when colleagues become friends and friends colleagues. I'm blessed by the talent and love that surrounds me, most of it unconditional. May I never take it for granted.

The unlived life

Back home from the city, with the March newspaper printed (so old fashioned), I'm sitting at the back of the house having a strong cup of coffee, watching the sun set.
I'm facing incredible resistance at the start of my new (personal) chapter; when I'm about to to take a quantum leap out of the crab bucket I meet, as always, my own worst enemy: me.
Steven Pressfield, in his The War of Art, one of my favourites books of all time (and a more or less constant companion since 2004) simply introduces the resistance concept in a short chapter titled The Unlived Life:
"Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance."
The phone rings. It's 'French' Alex who lives in the main road: "Wine isss served," she says. "I'm on my way," I say.
Now to pump my bike's tyres, as the sun sets behind the mountain.

January Highlands Herald

The January edition of Highlands Herald was put to bed last week, it was
printed on Wednesday, and now the very last of the distribution is just
about done.
We published January late because of the Christmas holidays, and will begin
the February edition tomorrow. It will be printed and distributed by Friday,
4 February.
Outside a storm has begun to rage; my fear is that it is a hailstorm.

Business Day: "...and a spunky little community paper called the Highlands Herald of Mpumalanga"

From www.journalism.co.za: This year's bumper crop of entries for the Taco Kuiper awards represents cheerful proof that SA's journalists are breaking solid investigative stories regularly, writes Anton Harber in Business Day. Anton Harber writes in Business Day: SOUTH African journalists — at least some of them — can hold their heads up high and stop flagellating themselves. Something has revived in at least some of our media — the fighting spirit that is essential to keeping our country’s leaders on their toes. In recent months, the talk in media has been of cutbacks in newsrooms around the world, closures of titles, consolidation and the loss of senior and experienced journalists. We have been asking what would happen to in-depth journalism when newsrooms did not have the time and resources to do the digging. And what will this mean for democracy? Well, I have good news for you (and bad news for the scoundrels of politics and business). I spent some time in the past few weeks as part of the panel of judges for the country’s biggest journalism awards, the Taco Kuiper Prize for Investigative Reporting. In previous years, we have received about a dozen entries, never more than 16, and only a few were contenders. This year, the entries flooded in — a total of 44, and the standard across the board was much higher than ever before. They came from television, radio, internet sites and print. Entries were received for the first time from SABC, e.tv, Radio 702, Politicsweb, Sake24, Business Times and a spunky little community paper called the Highlands Herald of Mpumalanga. Others came from Noseweek, City Press, M-Net’s Carte Blanche, Sunday Times, Mail & Guardian and the Daily Dispatch. What it showed us was that, despite the tough financial climate, there were pockets of dedicated journalists in many places doing hard work and great stories. One does not always notice the pattern from week to week, as these stories are scattered and sporadic, but look at them lined up together and it amounts to nearly one good muckraking story breaking every week somewhere in the country. Journalists took the government to task, but also the private sector. It was not just the usual stories about corruption, but also tales of environmental degradation, xenophobia, animal welfare, white- collar crime, prosecutors who plagiarise dubious opinions to get their political bosses off the hook, the police’s shoot-to-kill policies and even sport issues in the form of the Leonard Chuene affair. It was an amazing array of material, most of it well produced, powerfully presented and full of impact. It was the most cheering thing I have seen in South African journalism for some time. The notable gap was in radio, which drew only one entry. It is a great pity, because radio is our most popular medium and a wonderful platform for nailing no-goodniks. It is still true that there is less reporting of essential daily matters such as the courts, the city and town councils. It is true that in the routine stuff, there is too much reliance on PR handouts, and too many free lunches, trips and cars. But we are doing well on the big stories that tackle the powerful and the wealthy. We are not talking here about stories where journalists were handed information by politicians to trash their rivals. Or where documents were slipped under the door. We are talking about endurance journalism, where reporters have taken the time and trouble to push and to probe and to piece together evidence to make a story, often over months and with great courage, taking on the worst elements of our power structures. It may not be public policy to do lifestyle audits of politicians, but the media is doing it anyway. Parliament may be slack in forcing the president to declare his assets, but newspapers are on the case. Our public prosecutor will know that when he compromises his independence, reporters will be all over him. The ruling party might hire a spokesman who commits fraud and owes money all over town, but you can be sure it will make the front pages. The president’s friends may use deceit to get out of prison early, but there is no escaping the photographers. There will be one entrant who will take home the big prize next Friday, March 26, but the big winner is our democracy. - Harber is Caxton Professor of Journalism at Wits University. This column first appeared in Business day on 24 March 2010.

Rob Rose is 2009 Taco Kuiper award winner

From www.journalism.co.za: THE winner of the prestigious 2009 Taco Kuiper Award for Investigative journalism is Rob Rose from the Financial Mail/Sunday Times. The runners up are producer Susan Puren and presenter Devi Sankaree Govender from investigative program Carte Blanche, writes Ruona Agbroko for journalism.co.za. Rose’s series “South Africa’s Madoff” exposed fraudster Barry Tannenbaum who swindled South Africa’s business elite of millions. Puren and Govender’s Chicken Run about a chicken-breeding operation snowballed into a major scandal involving animal cruelty and a politician obtaining international funding under false pretences at the expense of a local community. Rose won R200 000 for emerging tops of 44 entries from 16 media outlets while Puren and Govender scoop R100 000 as runners-up. The judges said: “Financial journalists have been criticised in the last couple of years for the stories they missed. It is near impossible to expose an apparently respectable business person in South Africa without solid information. Painstakingly checking and double-checking the valuable detail of the intricate story, Rose came through with a really good tale, carefully pieced together and well told, exposing major deception in the country’s financial circles. Tannenbaum might have fooled some of South Africa’s best-known investors, but not Rose.” On Chicken Run, the judges said: “The story appears at first to be about a chicken-breeding operation run with cruelty and disregard for health laws, which then evolved into something bigger when a former MEC was caught being dishonest, leading to the discovery that he has raised international donor money under false pretences at the expense of a local community. “Carte Blanche took a seemingly little story and made it big. The journalists worked relentlessly hard and the end result was multi-layered, well-crafted and well told exposé. The judges made special mention of Govender’s excellent interviewing and presentation skills which were so central to the total unravelling of this story.” The ceremony was held at the Rand Club, Johannesburg on Friday March 26, 2010. “I didn’t feel like I deserved it,” Rose said minutes after he was announced winner. “There were some great stories so this is a pleasant surprise,” he added. Puren told Vuvuzela she initially doubted the source who leaked the story that would become Chicken Run; “I met him on a dark cold night and he gave me this DVD...I was seriously in doubt. But as a journalist you have to listen to your instinct.” Govender said the impact of the story has brought some downsides; “in fact, we came with our lawyers here today; they have been sent sms messages to newspapers that they will sue,” she laughed. According to Prof. Anton Harber, Caxton professor of Journalism and Media Studies and Director of the Wits Journalism Programme, this year’s award received entries for the first time from 7 media organisations including SABC, Radio 704, Business Times and SAKE 24. “Entries dealt not just with the political. Not only politicians were being held to account, but all those holding office of some sort. Every one of the top entries had a major impact on the world around it,” Harber continued. However, he said that judges were concerned that “Radio, the country’s largest medium was underrepresented in the quality and quantity of work submitted.” The ceremony was addressed by Ben Leapman, Deputy News Editor of The Sunday Telegraph in London, UK. Leapman investigated MP’s expenses over five years ago, doggedly using the UK’s Freedom of Information Act to force the facts out of the Government. “It has been a pleasure to witness firsthand the quality of investigative journalism that is being rewarded here today. Clearly, journalists are upholding the trust of the people in South Africa”, Leapman told journalism.co.za. Now in its fourth year, the Taco Kuiper Award is a joint initiative by The Valley Trust and the Wits Journalism programme to recognise outstanding work in investigative journalism in South Africa. The award was launched in 2007 in honour of the late business journalist and publisher Taco Kuiper, who shortly before his death in 2005, set up the Valley Trust.

Last Updated ( Monday, 29 March 2010 )

Highlands Herald

This is Piet van Wyk, the founder and editor of the of the Waterval-Boven based Highlands Herald... watch this space! (This posting was to show to him the immediacy and ease with which it is possible to blog from a mobile device.)