Tag: Team Vuvu

The Newsroom 9.0

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The week that was is somewhat of a blur. Feels like it took a short Usain Bolt like sprint and before I knew it, here I am on a Sunday afternoon trying to string together something semi interesting to write.

Monday morning is a haze of people typing frantically, in 11th hour attempts to get features done. I wished I could have joined in on the madness but I had already accepted that it was late for me, very late.

Later that morning we had to take a crack at writing travel features with Fred de Vries. He made us go to a mall, preferably one we had never visited before and take notes that would bring that mall to life. I went to the newly opened Oliven Plaza and man did I see some interesting things, hope it came out in the feature I managed to write.

That afternoon I dashed off to a Right2Know protest outside Luthuli House. Protesters were appealing to president Jacob Zuma, to ask for the Protection of State Information Bill to be taken back to parliament for some revision. I cause I would expect any media practitioner to support, this expectation was quickly dashed upon arrival.

We stood with some journalists and photographers from The Times and SAPA, they were obviously disappointed by the dismal turn out at the protest – granted. What I didn’t understand was their attitude towards the protest itself. There were scoffs, sighs and comments about what a waste of time the whole thing was. One photographer condescendingly said, “How many of these people (the protesters) have even read or really know what the Secrecy Bill is about?” he quickly went on to answer is own question “Only the journalists do,” he said with a chuckle.

I was like whaaaaat?! These people are gathered here to defend your right to do your job mister (all in my head of course, and in a tweet later that night). I suppose it was just disappointing to find out that some of the people we look up to are so jaded. Anyway I managed to get some great pictures and that’s all that mattered that day.

On Tuesday we had guest speaker Phillip Altbeker come in to discuss movie reviews with us. We wrote reviews on a movie the whole class went to watch a few weeks prior, Of Good Report. There were no comments on our work but he did say, “These will probably be the first and the last reviews you write.” I suppose that says it all doesn’t it?

From then on, the chase was one. One story after another had me going to and from the department. Another 12 pager was on the cards so we all had to do best. We were much more efficient than we have ever been come production time. I suppose being shouted at will do that to you. Needless to say we only missed deadline by a smidge and for the first time in a long time, I got home before the sun went down J

Friday was the best day of the whole week. It started off with a trip to Engineers Breakfast to get some good photographs, which we managed to do. Fomo hit us hard when we had to leave, we also wanted to sit under a gazebo, with meat on the coals and not a care in the world.

But we couldn’t, we had to rush off of to a guest photography lecture. I was very grateful for once it had ended, it might be one of the best lectures we have ever had. We got to see some of the meaningful work people are doing out there, as clichéd as it is pictures really are worth a thousand words.

Later that evening we had a braai and piss up of our own (that’s not very pc is it) oh well, we did and it was great. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, man I love my team *Drizzy voice*

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The end is nigh

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Tomorrow will mark the beginning of the end. It is our last academic block, the last block I will spend in the Vuvu newsroom.

I can imagine that my sleep deprived body is celebrating at the thought, but the rest of me, is quite sad. Sad that there are only three editions of the Wits Vuvuzela left to produce, sad that I will no longer see the same 16 faces (well 18 if I include K-dawg and Mama D) and sad that I will no longer have people join in when I randomly burst into song.

The past week and a half were a taste of the emptiness that awaits me. I had my mid-year photography course with just one other classmate. It was eerily quiet in the newsroom, making it that much more obvious that our whole family was gone.

On the few days that people did come in to work, I felt whole again – suddenly the days weren’t as long and my mouth seemed to curl into smiles more often. I wish someone had warned me against getting too close to these people, it’s going to be tough without them next year.

We went on a little field trip for a lesson in photography at the Times Live Media group. The newsroom was very quiet, very orderly, very cold even. Everyone seemed to be glued to their own cubicle, trying to meet their deadlines. Got the sense that it’s an every man for himself situation. Which I am definitely not used to after this year. All my efforts, all our efforts have been to make the Wits Vuvuzela the best newspaper it can be. No single gain made has been one that we all haven’t contributed to or are proud of.

And in testimony to that every so often I think back to all that we have achieved this year and all I can think is, “Man I love my team”.

The potential team vuvu for 2014 are already in the process of being chosen, the first round of tests started last Friday. That scared me shitless. It was not so long ago that I was where they are, hoping with everything inside of me that I would get picked.

It has been a grueling and trying year, but one I would do all over again if given the chance. We’ve had our ups and downs, more ups than downs and I will cherish them forever.

So as we head into the final weeks of being student journalists, I plan to make each day memorable – not they haven’t been but just because I realise how little time I have left to do so. Onwards and upwards 🙂

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Best reads

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Last week I was the editor of the paper, proud to say these were my best reads:

  • Wits staff ‘rural farm workers’ by Thuletho Zwane. A great article that exposes an outsourcing company which used dodge classification of workers to pay them less. It is disgusting that this kind of thing is still going on in this day and age.
  •  Rumble in the tunnel by Caro Malherbe. A story about the supposed improper conduct by the PYA last week. Points to some of the tactics being used ahead of SRC elections.
  • Women’s team won’t whimper by Mfuneko Toyana. A story on women’s football at Wits, it highlights the big difference in attention and resources provided to teams based on gender.
  • Oppikoppi photo spread by myself, Shandukani Mulaudzi and Caro Malherbe.

The Newsroom 8.6

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(My random numbering now coincides with the month we are in so hey, so why not stay with the 8 point something’s?)

I woke up five minutes before my alarm was due to ring last week Monday. I couldn’t keep in the excitement any longer I guess. I swung my wee legs out of the warm cocoon that was my bed and braved the cold all smiles to get ready for my week ahead as editor.

I welcomed everyone on the 19th voyage upon the Vuvuzela express at news conference later that morning and just like that the week was in full swing.

We had our first feature workshop on that same day, an hour or two dedicated to criting our feature writing work. I loved this process because gaps I might have never even seen where pointed out and will make for a better feature when I re-write it.

In an odd turn of events we had to distribute the newspaper on Monday because of the public holiday the Friday before. 1pm came, 3pm strolled in and by 5pm we still had no Vuvuzela’s to hand out. Distribution then turned into a two day mission but it got done in the end.

We had two other guest speakers on Tuesday morning, meaning our Vuvu day only started at about lunch time. There we were typing and chatting away in the newsroom, when someone ran in telling us that there was a fire on the 15th floor.

SMOKEY: Elevator technician trying to extinguish the flames in Lift B on 14 floor, University Corner. Photo: Pheladi Sethusa
SMOKEY: Elevator technician trying to extinguish the flames in Lift B on 14 floor, University Corner. Photo: Pheladi Sethusa

Being the people we are, two of us grabbed our cameras, the other a notebook and off we ran to try and get the story. By the 14th floor we were inhaling the smoke fumes but still trying to get closer for that perfect shot. We were chased away but came back about 5 minutes later. Found out that there had been a fire in one of the lifts. You know, the one we take every day. The evacuation made for an unproductive afternoon.

Wednesday morning saw 7 team vuvu members  heading to Orange Farm to help out with something the Wits Justice Project was doing in the area. That plus two people off sick, made for a very empty newsroom. Copy came in very slowly, causing a few tempers to flare.

As usual I dibsed the photo spread page, the lack of fast copy got us the Oppi page we wanted *boogies*

Oppikoppi photo spread
Oppikoppi photo spread

Production did not run smoothly at all but as usual it all came together in the end. The following morning we had a bit of a design workshop with Irwin Manoim, I found it quite helpful.

Later that night I went off to the “We are going to kill each other today: The Marikana Story” – a collection of photographs and stories by a group of journalists and photographers. The event was held at the Old Fort at Constitutional Hill, on the exact date that marked a year since the massacre happened. It was quite overwhelming seeing the photographs taken at Marikana while standing in what used to be an apartheid jail. Death was all around us.

On Saturday a bunch of us headed off to Soccer City for the Nelson Mandela sports day. We got complimentary tickets to watch Bafana Bafana take on Burkina Faso and later the Springboks take on the Argentinians. Both of our teams won leading to much merriment in the stands.

I wanted to leave early to see my parents off but decided to stay on to watch some of the concert. I did for a while but the cold got to me and managed to catch a ride back to campus. I was really excited to go home to a hot meal and my warm bed.

Those thoughts all came to an abrupt halt when a black figure decided to break my car window and steal my backpack. The backpack with my DSLR camera and wallet in it. In the moment I froze and couldn’t accelerate like my mind was telling me to.

Long story short, I picked up new bank cards and got a new window fitted today. What a way to end what was an amazing week.

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Court Reporting Party

Gallery Pheladi SethusaLeave a comment

Our social media lecturer, Dinesh Balliah took some great photo’s at our little partay last week.  man I love my team #teamvuvu

The Newsroom 7.0

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It was 09:45 on a Wednesday morning. The excitement of seeing familiar faces had waned and I had already missed two deadlines. All I wanted to do at that point was sleep. Sleep for longer than five hours.

First week back in the newsroom has been nothing sort of exhausting. Gone are the days of sleeping in, late lunches, series marathons and groove. The break was very, very good to me. I had about six and a half weeks to do the things I no longer had time for when I started this course.

The week started early, the Friday before this Monday – with news conference. We needed to plan well in advance for our 12 page edition, which came out this past Friday. We had a lot of content, which made for stabilised stress levels (mostly).

Along with trying to do this ‘little’ producing a paper thing, we started with feature writing classes. We have been told that this part of the course is one of the most difficult. I had hoped these are just scare tactics, failure doesn’t look good on me. But on the real I am quite keen. I feel like feature writing will make me write creatively and in a way that is less insular than I do on these interweb streets.

Back to the newsroom – I was rusty AF. I wrote one story on newly signed work contracts by Wits cleaners – that wasn’t too bad I rate. My design work on the other had was horrendous *shaking my head at myself* It reminded me that being good requires practice – lots of it. Something which rang true with the photo’s I took this week – the photography work I did in the holidays has made me polish up my skills behind the lens.

My favourite shot was of Albert, a Witsie with ‘the calling’ – a colleague wrote about his story. He had such a great story to tell and I am glad that I got to capture an essence of his lively spirit with the photo(s) I took.

Pictured here, Albert Khoza Photo: Pheladi Sethusa
Pictured here, Albert Khoza Photo: Pheladi Sethusa

Last night I learnt that there might be nothing more trying than trying to take photos in a dark club. Without a flash or one of those fancy lights hitched onto the camera. I love my Ruby (my Nikon D5100) but there were points last night when I looked at people’s Canon 7D’s with longing.

All in all it has been a great week. It has been tough getting back into the swing of things but I have five fresh days coming up to try again.

The Newsroom 6.0

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Well somehow between exhaustion and a coma induced by sheer laziness I didn’t post a “newsroom update”  from last week – a thousand apologies to the five of you that do read this blog.

Last week was meant to be one of our most hectic weeks in the newsroom as we were publishing a twelve page edition. Yet somehow, it turned out to be one of our calmer weeks– especially on production day. Things went swimmingly, we even – wait for it – sent the paper in to the printers on time (give or take 10 minutes). Something which apparently hasn’t been done in the Vuvu newsroom for about two years.  Yay us!

I have trouble remembering anything that happened over the ppast seven days, so I can’t remember much else from that week besides the fact that we did joPs (no, that is not a typo, just a #balcktwitter reference).

Okay on to events I can remember – this past week we had news conference as usual, a very rushed one was had but we all had something to bring to the proverbial table.  We then had guest speaker Gilbert Marcus in to teach us a thing or two about the courts. He taught us the basic ins and outs of courts in SA.

After which we all had to scurry off to get our stories started. I went in the opposite direction and helped out with a video vox –  just find them so fun. The question we posed was about female condoms, we got amazing responses from Witsies.

Later that evening I had an interview on Life Beats, a show on VoW FM. The topic up for discussion was social media – how I use it in my personal and professional life mainly. Luckily I was joined by my friend and colleague Shandukani Mulaudzi and we had a ball just speaking our minds. The host said we had been the most entertaining guests they had had on air in a while.  I really enjoyed being on radio, it may be something I want to pursue now.

On Tuesday morning we went through to watch proceedings at Constitutional Court. It was great being there while something was actually happening, as opposed to just taking pictures outside as I had done before. We went in preparation for court week – which starts tomorrow. We just wanted something we could compare the High Court and Magistrates Court to. Those attorneys and advocates know their stuff, it was interesting listening to them make their arguments.

The week from there on was pretty much down hill, I felt super busy every day but I wasn’t really doing anything. Both of my stories fell off the diary because of late responses from sources but it’s chilled guess it gives us (me) more time to get a better story together.

The only piece of myself I managed to get in the paper was a deep caption of Mfundi Vundla. Come production day it was back to the same 8 pager chaos that we are accustomed to. I was production manager again and this week was surprisingly more challenging than last week.

But as always we made it somehow and luckily we got the rest of that day off, which gave me a chance to catch up on much needed sleep. As a mentioned earlier Court Week starts next week, 8am to 6pm days – I can’t wait!

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The Newsroom 5.5

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This week we had no print edition of the paper, so we had to up our game online (well at least that was the plan going in).

Photo: Shandukani Mulaudzi
Photo: Shandukani Mulaudzi

I was the lucky one who got to be online editor during this week. I was very excited to do so because online things tickle me. I got to run my first ever news conference which I must say I did quite well, delegating has always been a strong point of mine.

Once that was done, I typed up the diary of the week – which set out who was doing what and when they were doing it for. I wouldn’t say that my deadlines where unrealistic, but I came to learn that they actually meant nothing to a lot of people. Some things came in two hours late and others two days late. I still rate I did what I could to make sure that the most important deadlines where adhered to.

Our guest speaker for the week was Justice Malala, from 24 hour news channel eNCA. I opted to do something a little alternative this week when it came time to hand in our guest speaker report. Right after he spoke to us we learnt about content curation via Storify. So I took it upon myself to incorporate what I had learnt and went the alternative route when writing up my report/article – I am not sure how well that went down with my lecturer though.

I had so much fun with my test run on storify mission that I went ahead and put together another with a colleague later in the week. It is the ultimate stalker tool on the interwebs, I am slowly becoming a wee bit obsessed with it.

We had a public holiday right in the middle of the week, that holiday was Worker’s Day. Vuvu journalist, Dineo Bendile wrote a great article on the day – she covered the staff at Wits who work nights to keep campus safe and clean. It made me realise how hard some people have to work and how little recognition these people get.

Thursday and Friday were business as usual, which saw me running around asking people to submit their articles online. I went to a lecture/talk hosted by Eusebuis McKaiser on the importance of the intimacy required in student-staff relationships, to make them beneficial to the students. I must admit I am a fan of his and tend to agree with a lot of things he has to say, that said he made some great points.

I also had a lot of fun putting together and just watching the daily video vox’s on our site, it is always a treat to get to hear other student’s thoughts and opinions on current issues. Which is another reason I had a blast being the editor this week.

On the weekend I was part of the #vuvuweekend team, we went around various joints in Braam to check out the vibe. We managed to get some amazing shots, no “grin and grabs”. We will be using the photo’s in a photo spread next week – in our very first 12 page paper *excitement*

So all in all I had a great week, busy but quite chilled (hence the .5 numbering in my title) in comparison to what is coming our way this week.

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