RUTV 3

With new found pride at finally being RUTV reporters, Zikhona and I embarked on our story. A simple topic, investigating why campaign posters have been banned on campus, proved to be challenging to film and condense into a focused 1 and a half minute news story.

Technical glitches

On our first day of filming – we had set up an interview with Siyabonga Yonzi, a politics honours student – we decided to get to our set location early to be super prepared. To our great frustration and embarrassment, we realised once the camera was unpacked and securely on its tripod that we had stupidly forgotten a tape at home.

Click here to watch a clip of Siyabonga that we did not use in the final story due to an unappealing sniff (or snort) mid-answer:

 Off the record interviews

While “off the record” sounds really journalistic, it turned out to be more problematic than expected. We were told by an anonymous source that Rhodes has not yet legislated the decision to ban campaign posters on campus. The decision allegedly only appears on SRC meeting minutes.

Findind a focus

We made the mistake of getting all our visuals and conducting interviews with no clear purpose or story angle in mind. When we finally sat down with all our footage we had to ask ourselves repeatedly “what is the story?” While writing to visuals is a strength of the image school principle, our visuals failed us in that they were not amazing and we didn’t have interesting sequences to work with.

Looking at our final story, I realise that we failed to establish a clear angle. We should have either pursued the lack of a paper trail angle or interrogated the claims by the University that posters harm the aesthetics (the visual feel and appeal) of campus.

Click here to hear Kholosa Loni, Rhodes SRC President, revealing the flaw in University Management’s argument (a rare ‘going against the authorities’ moment):

 [podcast]http://rutv3.ru.ac.za/wp-content/uploads/soundclipforblog1.mp3[/podcast]

Interviewing a DA leader

Interviewing Mike Lewis, a DA leader for the Makana Municipality, was not that fruitful. He did, however, take a stab at student partying and Pirates Pizza (despite asking him about posters!). We decided not to include him in the final story as we did not want our story to in any way favour the DA or only give a voice to one political party.

Click here to see a Democratic Alliance leader letting his political correctness slip for a few seconds:

We definitely learnt some tough lessons through producing this news story. However, they will prove to be helpful in terms of avoiding the same mistakes in future projects.

By Andisa Ndlovu & Shanel Pillay

Community Engagement week was held from the 16th to 20th March.   Many activities took place that not only involved the students on campus but learners off campus as well.   Events such as the “human chain” and “unity in community fun day” were the highlights of the week.

For more interviews and information on how this package was made click here

ANCYL Julius Malema was said to address the Rhodes students, staff and the Grahamstown community at large…He never arrived at the rally. The ANC loyalists speculate that Rhodes did not allow Malema to come to campus.

Siyabonga Yonzi spoke us about his views on the state of education which has been described as “in crisis”.

Rhodes University 3rd year student Phakamani Lisa is COPING just fine. With the upcoming South African national elections on the 22nd of April 2009, she knows exactly where her ballot is going to go- for ANC breakaway party, COPE. With student apathy a major concern, Phakamani provides a refreshing perspective as to why she has placed her hope in COPE.

 Pirates Pizza is a student-run business started by Geoff Waugh, Daniel Hocutt, Karim Dhanani and Chris Marshall. They were all students studying at Rhodes, and some are currently finishing their degrees here. As the boys themselves put it on their website : 

 “The enterprise was started in Dan’s bedroom in Cullen Bowles res, it quickly grew to the point where the university waved its big finger at us and demanded that we cease and desist any and all mind-blowing pizza making operations on university property, which we completely understood, as they of course we’re just jealous because they didn’t know our secret recipe… Erm and we were breaking every rule they had written about residences and businesses on campus.”

After Rhodes forbid Dan to continue making and selling pizza in their bedroom, they moved their enterprise to a small venue next to Maxwell’s restaurant in Somerset Street. To raise the capital to sub-lease this property Geoff sold his old Mercedes, Dan sold cows that their family owned and Chris “begged, borrowed and stole,” which in Pirates terms means he loaned some money. Karim joined the team as a partner, and the new Pirates was opened.

 Since they opened in 2007 Pirates has been a hit amongst Rhodes students. As their fan page on Facebook dictates they are a:

“Student run, owned and consumed boot leg pizza venue. Always hard to draw the line between the crew and the customers as they generally are the same bunch…pretty ‘ridiculously good looking people in it that know how to have a good time and make pizza, open till 3:30am on the big nights.”

 Their cheap pizza and lively atmosphere have drawn in a great deal of customers and created some avid Pirates Pizza fans. In fact, they have done so well that they are expanding to a larger premises in African street in May 2009.

This venue will not only sell pizza but operate as a fully functioning, hip and happening new party spot for Rhodes students. The owners have been notoriously secretive about developments happening in the club in order to keep it a surprise for opening day. But stripper poles on the bar and a “fun police” have been promised.

Initially Pirates only employed students, but with their expansion more employees from the greater Grahamstown community are joining the crew.