Rhodes student shares work experience at Berea Mail
Former DHS learner, Sicelo Gcabashe of Umbilo is a first year journalism student at Rhodes who chose to do his work experience at Berea Mail. Here is his account of his week in our newsroom.
THE shadow week was an insightful experience having chosen to do it in my home city of Durban.
I had the privilege of getting to work at the Berea Mail newspaper shadowing journalist Lauren Walford on her daily reporting duties.
Having arrived to start my shadow week on publishing day I was fortunate enough to witness how a newspaper is run and how pages are planned relative to space and topics.
ALSO READ: Search for galaxy clusters earns UKZN student academic success
This happened as I got to partake in news meetings with the editor and her editorial team.
I was able to witness how stories are cut and moved around to fit according to how much space is available on certain pages and how they are recorded according to their slugs.
Over the next couple of days I was able to participate in interviewing sources for some of Lauren’s stories that she was tasked with covering.
This included working on an interesting story about how the local community car guards have transformed one of the city’s busiest roads, Davenport Road, into a safe and clean environment.
ALSO READ: People aren’t reporting crime
The guards have recently been threatened by criminals who they have caught stealing, but are released by authorities because of a lack of people pressing criminal charges.
The biggest piece of work that I got to partake in was the labour strike held by members of Cosatu, Sadtu, Sadco and other civil society groups.
The strike was organised in response to the recent increase in government corruption and state capture and was held along Dr Pixley KaSeme Street (formerly West Street) in Durban’s City Centre. The march started on King Dinizulu Street and ended at the Durban City Hall where a memorandum was handed over.
I was tasked with interviewing sources at the strike to get their opinions on what the march was about and how it came about.
In interviewing sources I found that I was met with a few challenges such as people at the march were skeptical about talking to the media.
ALSO READ: Masses march against state capture and corruption
I was able to use all the journalistic knowledge that I have acquired during the course of this year to eventually acquire a variety of sources that could be quoted and photographed.
Having acquired credible sources, I was then tasked with having to write an article on the strike which was going to feature in the coming week’s newspaper.
Other story ideas that I worked on was a story that I had about writing a sports feature about the community football team at Stella Football Club.
The junior teams have over the past couple of seasons produced good results and played entertaining football while showcasing the sporting talent that is rich in the area.
Do you want to receive news alerts via WhatsApp? Send us a WhatsApp message (not an sms) with your name and surname to 060 532 5535.
You can also join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
PLEASE NOTE: If you have signed up for our news alerts you need to save the Berea Mail WhatsApp number as a contact to your phone, otherwise you will not receive our alerts
