At DISCOP Africa, managing editor of Vice Media Ryan Grim and Phil Molefe,
journalist and former SABC group CEO, gave workshop attendees the low-down on
alternative news reporting – a new wave of broadcast journalism that has people all
over the world totally gripped.
Most news presented on mainstream media platforms is brief, superficially
reported, and skimmed over in a slick packaged 90-second slot. This is not only the
opinion of the media professionals tasked with delivering stories to the public, but
the very consumers it seeks to reach. Today audiences are exposed to a plethora of
online news aggregators unafraid to scratch below the surface of the underreported,
the gutsy and the sometimes only whispered about issues in our society.
These independent entities use leads from non-traditional sources like social media
and citizens to deliver news which is unaffected by what former e.tv CEO Marcel
Golding recently described as: “interference with the independence and integrity of
editorial content,’ by government or commercial investors.
Vice Media is one of the alternative news pioneers but a number of influential
people have since jumped on the bandwagon. Comedian and celebrity Russell Brand
is one of them, describing his YouTube channel The Trews as “a new frequency of
truth’. Vice, which started 20 years ago as a magazine in Montreal, has in the past
few years exploded as a global phenomenon which hosts its own YouTube channel
and HBO-backed TV show.
Grim commented: “A lot of coverage of the African continent in the US can be very
narrow. CNN or Reuters wouldn’t take on a hairy story or go there but that’s Vice’s
MO – go someplace dangerous, live there for a while and cover the story.’
Vice’s short documentaries expose pertinent issues like oil pirating in the Nigerian
Delta and fattening camps for young girls in Mauritania, but they also report on
interesting and edgy culture trends like eco-friendly condoms, DIY weed doctors and
why rap lyrics are being brought into courtrooms. The concept is more than
appealing – it’s Emmy Award winning.
Bringing this into the context of South Africa, Molefe was inspired by the potential
of alternative news and said: “My take is that news rooms need to adapt to these
forms of storytelling – if we combine the experience of Vice and new news
gathering formats, we can actually have a vibrant circulation of news in our society.
We are breaking down the barriers of entry – historically to be a storyteller you had
to go a school of journalism but now everyone can tell stories about what’s
happening in their environment.’ However, Molefe pointed out a number of issues
around the moderation of content, surrounding ethics, quality and the upholding of
editorial standards, which he maintained, merited consideration.
The session generated a scintillating debate among media professionals in the
audience who felt the big challenge faced by local news crews is that the necessary
funds to produce content with chutzpah do not yet exist and, that until such a time,
any story connected to a potential funder may remain untold.
