Drawing to an end

We dropped the bombshell on the Upstarters in the previous Wednesday workshop, very soon we’ll be gone and they’ll be left alone to see to it that the radio show continues. I saw several dilated pupils after we told them that our relationship will be coming to an end in about two weeks’ time. We’re still going to have a conversation about what we mean by the end of the relationship.

Part of this conversation should be a detailed structure of what it takes to put everything together, from planning of Wednesday workshops to the broadcast of the show on Saturdays. This is not to intimidate them but to give them an idea of the kind of work they’ll have to do after we’ve left. And also so they can see which task would be suited for whom in their group of six. They’ll need to work as a group to ensure that all the different elements are taken care of. From the previous debrief session we had, I got the impression that they want to see this through, they want the radio show to continue, they want to build an audience for it and they’ve become attached to Yung Amplified. They suggested that they should have a name for themselves as the group of six Upstarters. To put it in Thobani’s words “there’s a lot of Upstarters we need to have a name for ourselves”. For me this shows that they want to take ownership of the show and want to be acknowledged as contributors of the show.

As part of handing over the responsibility of the show, this past Saturday I ran the debrief session with Thobani. He did most of the talking and I just helped him guide the discussion. We recognized as a group that maybe Anesipho and Ziphozinhle could be Nadia’s assistant producers after Mike, Stephen and I have left. These two girls would be capable of running the content part of the Wednesday workshops, but they would need to do this with the help of one of the radio students. At the moment we are teaching them how to edit and Anelisa has shone through as someone who grasps Adobe easily. She could help fellow Upstarters who are struggling with the programme and editing audio. It’s difficult to place any kind of responsibility on Roche at the moment because some weekends he might not be available, due to rugby matches.

For the handing over of tasks and responsibilities to happen successfully, the team of radio students will need to sit together and talk about how things have worked and what they have done to get to this point. This will help us in deciding which responsibilities can be handed over to the Upstarters now, and which will still need some time and should be done in small doses. We all also need to be creative about how these responsibilities are handed over. The Upstarters are still in school and whatever tasks we give them shouldn’t eat into their time to do homework and other school related things, especially as exams are coming up in the next week. There’s also the issue of availability of resources, it’s been relatively easier for us to run things because we have airtime to make phonecalls and access to internet and computers. The Upstarters are willing and are excited to start doing most of the work themselves, but we should make sure that the transition is as hassle free as possible for them. This will depend on the viability of the production system we have established over the past couple of months.  

Quality Radio

South Africa turned 18 years old this past week and on Yung Amplified and we were celebrating the event and getting to grips, with what it means. Thobani and Ziphozinhle were tasked with interviewing people in their community about what Freedom Day means in contemporary South Africa. Both these young people came away from their interviews with new knowledge of where this country comes from.

Judging from Thobani’s pacakage of his discussion, he learnt about the kind of conditions that black people lived under during apartheid. For Zipho it was the events of 27 April 18years ago that stood out for her. She was also rather unimpressed with the little effort that is made to inform young people about this day.  She suggested that more should be done in order to ensure that people are made aware of the importance the day.  Zipho and Thobani also suggested that the municipality could host functions which will serve as awareness campaigns. They added that it would be important during these functions food to be served  to the public, not only as a strategy to attract numbers but because people are poor and hungry.

Joining us in studio was Richard Pithouse of the politics department at Rhodes and Mr Macanda a history teacher at Numbulelo High School. Anesipho was assertive and articulate when interviewing these gentlemen about the meaning of Freedom Day, elections in a democracy and the future for South Africa. I think the chance to do live interviews allows the Upstarters to put into practice everything that we have we’ve taught them about interviewing techniques, particularly with regards to asking follow up questions. My favourite part of her interview was a follow up question to Richard Pithouse about what he meant by “amazing opportunities available to young people of the country”. This question invigorated the interview and it made Richard loosen up and engage with the interview in his personal capacity. I thought Anesipho would be intimidated, interviewing two learned grown-ups but you could see she was listening attentively and trying to make the most of her interview.

                                           Anesipho speaking to Richard Pithouse and Mr Mcanda

Our funny feature doesn’t have an official name yet. We came to the resolution that if no one suggests a more funky name for it, we will have to stick with Thobani’s not-so-funky “funny kids”. Anelisa was our comedian for the day, she read jokes that Roche had sourced. Sinovuyo gave us a review of the Upstart paper.

                                            Sinovuyo reviewing the Upstart paper

The Upstarters are starting to interrogate the material they’ve produced for their show. During the debrief session they don’t shy away from being critical about the their show as a whole. They used this session to unpack Yung Amplified from the packages that were played, in-studio discussions and the guests we’d invited.  They raised points about how the show was not as fun as the previous show and that the missing anchors affected the show. Something that caught my attention was that they want the show to be informative as much as it is fun and entertaining. I guess this is a challenge for the team, to find a meeting point of these elements.

Something we haven’t tapped into as the team of radio students, is reading the Upstarters’, blogs to see if there are any insights we can take from the reflective piece. This should help with the production culture of Yung Amplified and also for the Upstarters to know that their blogs are contributing towards creating rich content for the show.

You are tuned into Yung Amplified

If you didn’t hear our last show then you missed out on an awesome show. The past show has definitely raised the standards for future shows, the content was relevant and interesting and the Upstarters have definitely come into their own on air. We had two recorded interviews, which were of professional standard not once did you hear mic rumble or technical glitches.

Anelisa and Sinovuyo did a good job with the interviews, they both stuck to the focus which was Hitchhiking. Anelisa interviewed someone from her community and Sinovuyo interviewed two learners from her school. Am happy to see that they are confident doing interviews with real people, about real issues without someone holding their hand.

                              Anelisa adding her views during the studio discussion

Our joke section got off to a good start, the jokes were funny and suitable for the show. I do think that one of the radio students should be responsible for screening these jokes before they go on air, just to make sure that they aren’t offensive and are appropriate for the show. We havevn’t found a cool name for this section yet, Thobani suggested funny kids, but this doesn’t quite a have that ring to it. I suggested that each Upstarter should come with two possible names for our joke feature on Yung Amplified, hopefully by Saturday we will have a permanent cool and funky name for our jokes feature.

As the last show was such a great success, I think as we should choose a clip of the show that can be played on other shows on RMR, to advertise the Yung Amplified show. After each show during our debrief section the team should decide on which clip can be used as a spot for that week.

I think the success of our past show comes from the planning and structuring that happened in the last workshop. This has become a collective effort, the Upstarters are contributing content and on the management side of things, the fourth years are supervising this process diligently. The star of the team is Nadia, she has seen to it that there is a rooster detailing who will be responsible for what during each work. This has helped in making sure that each person knows what they’ll be contributing for the shows and it means our running order can finally come to life.

I believe we have an audience that listens to the show every Saturday and now we just need to find ways to hear them as much as they hear us. Our Mxit page is up and running and we should be using it as a tool to get audience response and audience interaction. For now I suggested that the Upstarters ask three people from their school or community what they thought about our show. I think audience feedback will be helpful as we try to design a show that will satisfy our audience. This exercise will also get the Upstarters talking about the show to the peers in school and hopefully they will bring it up in their weekly Upstart workshops.

Wave your flag

This past week has been very eventful. The first event was a picnic, which formed part of  a partnership between Mary Waters High School and the Journalism Department. This term, first year journalism students have been paired with learners from Mary Waters to write profiles on each other. This initiative is supposed to help the high school learners to practice and improve their writing skills. The picnic was organized in order to help the Mary Waters learners and the Rhodes students to get to know each other. Naturally we solicited two of our Upstarters from Mary Waters to be field reporters on the day.

                                              Picnic

Anesipho was to interview Rod Amner, a journalism lecturer and Elizabeth Adesina, an English teacher from Mary Waters. Anesipho pulled it off like a pro. I thought she’d be nervous interviewing the lecturer and the teacher, nope no signs of nervs. She assembled her recorder as we’d taught her before. She asked her interviewees to introduce themselves and from there she firedaway asking, questions I hadn’t even thought of. Mike and I were pleasantly surprised to see her assert herself and confidently conduct the interview.

 Elizabeth Adesina talking about how her learners will benefit from the partnership

Rod Amner talking about the merits of the partnership between his department and Mary Waters High School

Thobani was our second field reporter on the day. He was prepared to do a vox pop, getting the views of both the learners and students involved in this partnership. He’s condition though, was that he wouldn’t be accompanied. He took his recorder and off he went. None of us were present to his assess his interviewing skills but from listening to it later he did a good job.

 Myself and Mike also accompanied Anesipho and Thobani on a trip to Addo Elephant National Park this past weekend. The trip was organized by Wild Reach, an organization that seeks to introduce children from the township to nature and the concept of nature conservation. This time around I appointed the task of conducting an interview with the ‘official voices’ to Thobani. The assignment was, more particularly, to speak to the organizers of the trip. Once again Thobani didn’t want to be accompanied and assures he’d be able to handle the interview. His exact words were “come on Bkaay you know me”. Feedback from his interviewees was that he did an outstanding job, he asked good questions and held his own. Apparently before conducting the interview he asked the three organizers to switch their cellphones off. For me hearing that was a proud moment. Anesipho did a good job of doing a vox pops with the Upstarters who went on the trip with us. She’s really good at formulating questions on her feet.

 Judging from this experience,  I think the Upstarters are ready to do some things on their own. In fact, and in some instances they are crying out for that opportunity. They’ve demonstrated that they’re capable to do well at certain tasks and that when the time comes when we leave them behind, they’d do just fine without us.

 At the same time, I feel that, although that time will come, we’re not there yet. Upstart Radio Team might have mastered the interviewing bit but there’s still a lot more to be done. There is, in particular, a need to assist them in developing some long-term  plans for building the show. For example, Thobani,  Anesipho and the other members of the team need to think about ways of building an audience for the show. How will they get the other Upstarters who were on the Addo trip to listen to the show? And this goes not only for next week Saturday, when they will hear themselves on the radio, but also in the long term.  The Upstart Radio Team  need to ensure that they’ll keep listening beyond that, and they’ll get their mates listening as well.

 I think the easiest audience pool to target are the other Upstarters, just like the ones who went on the trip. They’re already part of an existing network and come from different schools in different areas in Grahamstown. If the Radio Team can draw this already established network, then they will know that someone is listening, not just someone but an Upstarter who can relate to them and the content they produce. I am sure there are existing channels of communication within the Upstart network that Yung Amplified can exploit. For example, the Upstart clubs meet each week at schools all over Grahamstown. The cool thing about this is that the Radio Team can use these workshops as a forum for audience feedback. So the Yung Amplified team can hear what their Upstart mates at school think of the show and its content.

Mixit proved to be a unending maze this week, apparently there different versions of MXit that people are registered into  and there’s a version that connect to Facebook. According to the Upstarters people aren’t as crazy about Mxit anymore because there’s WatsApp now. I couldn’t keep up with their explanation, at some point I was lost in the maze of versions and upgrades. We’ve decided that a Yung Amplified Upstarter will be responsible for making sure that Yung Amplified has a presence on Mxit and that people using the site know about the show and are interacting with us. He’ll add or is invite everyone on the team and everyone else will add their friends. I need to stress here that this is a responsibility, interacting with the audience is a crucial part of our show and will demand a level of commitment from the Upstarter taking this on, this also means that this Upstarter will need to be monitored by one of the radio students.

 We have a lot cut out for us, but we’ve come a long way. If you look into the horizon, focus your eyes and slightly close your eyes, you’ll see a brigade of young radio journos proudly waving the flag. Am proud of my team and the Upstarters.  

Working towards a goal

In this week's Wednesday workshop, I took the group through interviewing techniques. This time around I also focused on using the recorder. The idea was to prepare them for the task we’d planned for them this week, but recorded interviewing is, of course, a skill they’ll need to sharpen for their radio show. The time will come when they’ll have to conduct interviews individually without the help and support of either a fellow Upstarter or a radio student. During the presentation I asked to give me instructions on how to assemble the field recorder. In this way I was able to have their full attention, making sure it would be almost impossible for them to forget what they were learning.
Their task for the day was to interview a staff member at the Journalism and Media Studies department. They were split in to two groups of three and each group interviewed a staff member. The focus for the interview was ‘When you were my age’. The task not only gave them a chance to practice what they’d learnt during the presentation but it also helped solidify a sense of solidarity amongst them.

The one group consisting of Anelisa, Sinovuyo and Thoban were able to get a relative broadcastable interview, in terms of the technical quality. The recording by the other group consisting of Roche, Ziphozihle and Anesipho wasn’t of a good technical quality; they weren’t able to put into practice the principles we’d taught them in the presentation.  We can take away from this task that more practice is needed to make sure that the Upstarters would independently be able to contribute broadcastable content for their show.  There are simple details like mic rumble and mic distancing that we’ll need to revisit to ensure that once we as the radio students have left, they’d be able to get recording that would need minimal editing. We want to instill a certain standard of professionalism, in terms of technical quality, because quality content is not broadcastable if technical quality is poor.

 Sinovuyo and Anelisa of Upstart asking Jeane from the School of Journalism Media Studies, what she got up to when she was their age.

Roche and Anesipho of Upstart speaking to Jude from the School of Journalism adn Media Studies, about what he got up to when he was their age.

Due to Yung Amplified already having its own anchors, we don’t have to urgently train the Upstarters to be anchors. We have however, started to introduce them to live radio and being interviewed on air. We are hoping that they’ll get to a point where they don’t momentarily panic before they have to say something on air. A couple of the Upstarters like Anesipho, Anelisa and Ziphozinhle have no problem with responding to the anchor on air and thinking on their feet. For the other three, Roche, Sonvuyo and Thoban a little more time will should be spent to try and to get them a little less nervous.

Our hour on air at the moment needs more content. At the moment Yung Amplified is still driven by music, as a rule we pass time by playing music  two songs after a segment or an interview. In my view we need to get to the point where we are producing enough content so that we’re only playing at least two songs in that hour and that we get to interact with our audience. This, as I see it, should be our top priority; since our show is by the youth and for the youth, it is imperative that we encourage audience involvement.

I also think an important opportunity for encouraging such involvement is through drawing on social media, in order to hear what our audience is saying. We need, for example,  to make use of Facebook, and we have in fact started doing so in the last show. Mxit is another avenue we need to tap into in terms of interacting with our audience. I must profess though that I have a phobia for this networking service. For the Upstarters this is something they’ll need to be using as an interactive measure during and after the show.

As I see it, our hour long slot on Yung Amplified must disseminate material that will both inform and entertain our audience. Our duty as the radio students is teach the Upstarters how to identify stories and issues that they can use for the show. They need, in particular, to recognize that content is something that is constantly around them, in their schools, in their weekly Upstart workshops, in their communities. They need to start thinking of their own social contexts as something interesting enough for the radio airwaves. And  then they also need to be able to come up with creative ways to package the stories that they see around them. I think producing content like this would be easy for the Upstarters and would be interesting for the audience to listen to. For now we, the radio students are coming up with ideas for content but as time goes they’ll need to step-up and start suggesting ideas that we could explore. As they get used to being responsible for what goes on air, they’ll be able to produce content on their own.

At the moment it is way too early to let the Upstarters run things independently, they haven’t shown any signs of taking ownership of the Yung Amplified hour yet- I think this is partly because the past two shows they have been treated as guests for the show. I think that once they show an interest at making that hour theirs and taking ownership of it, then we’ll see them break out of their mold.

Learning and growing together

Three weeks into the partnership project and things are taking form. After the Upstarters had their first on air experience this past Saturday on RMR, we’re all just want to see this project succeed. There’s a lot of potential to be unpacked from this partnership, not only from the Upstarters but the fourth year students as well. I mentioned two weeks ago that as the group of journalism students, we can gain professional experience from participating in the partnership.  I overlooked the mentoring experience that could be gained here.  See these young people are learning to make their place in the world, and we have given them a platform from which they can speak and be heard. One thing we need to impart on them is that there’s a responsibility that comes with this privilege.  If they’re able to nurture this privilege and use it efficiently they are well on their way to becoming young leaders.  And that’s essentially what the Upstart theme of The Youth Speaking to Power is about.

We try to introduce the Upstarters to tools that they can use beyond the radio show. This week we introduced them to blogging, this is something we’ll be doing with them from now on. It will be used as a method of reflection, reflecting on the activities set aside for them in the Wednesday workshops and for the shows on Saturdays. This is subsequently a chance for them to improve their writing skills.  It makes me happy to see them take part wholeheartedly in the activities we do and how they meticulously do their homework, some even giving themselves time to draw squiggly pink borders on their A4sheets of paper.  It’s also sad to see that they’re on the other side of the digital divide and something as simple as typing a 200word blog post is a difficult feat for them. During our blogging session these Upstarters went from confident and ambitious youngsters on the radio to being intimidated and timid in front of the computer. They took it in their stride though, they didn’t back down or ask if they could write their entries by hand.
The four that attended Saturday’s workshop have forged a friendship that will see them through this year, you hear them share jokes and encouraging each other. Sinovuyo is particularly shy but finds her spirits and confidence when she is with the other girls and they’ve warmed to her quite timid character. The other girls guide her along and encourage her, I picked this up when they were being interviewed on RMR. They were patient with her as she would slowly come toward the mic and speak in her very soft voice. I also noticed that during her interview she described herself as shy and confident, and I see when she’s in a group with the other girls she taps into her confident side more.
There’s a certain star quality about Anesipho, from the word go she expressed an interest in being behind the mic, presenting. When opportunity showed itself at RMR, she was not shy at all. Her voice works well on air and she speaks well too.  She engaged the anchor, not shying away from telling an anecdote about why she is scared of flying mantises.

 The Yung Amplified team is lucky to be working with an Upstarter who took the Upstarter of the year title last year. Ziphozihle is almost unstoppable, on top of wanting to be a forensic scientist she also wants to one day design her own car. I think we are working with a young wonder woman here, it seems with every workshop she is breaking loose of her shyness.  This is something she alluded to during her interview on air, saying that her three years of being an Upstart member have allowed her to be able to speak freely and openly before people

 During the Wednesday session I worked closely with Anelisa and Roche editing their profiles.  I was impressed to arrive on Saturday and Annelisa had reworked her whole profile, fixing the parts that needed retouching. She is adamant on making this partnership work for her, she has approached me several times enquiring on things she doesn’t understand.

 I found that from the beginning Roche exuded more confidence than the other Upstart kids and he was upfront from the very start that he is interested in the technical side of radio. From reading his profile during the Wednesday session he has a sneaky funnybone about him, this would add a fun element to the team. Roche doesn’t quite engage with the other Upstarters as I have imagined he would. Sometimes he chooses to keep to himself, I certainly hope that with time he will make an effort to collaborate with the others.

Unfortunately after our Wednesday session, one of the Upstart boys was involved in an accident while riding his bicycle home. Thobani wasn’t able to join us on Saturday as he is recovering after the accident, he should be joining us for the next session.

Getting the Upstarters on air primarily served to introduce the group to the Yung Amplified audience. We also wanted to give them the opportunity to experience live radio, I think this experience will allow them to generate ideas that would work for a live show. For now they see their radio slot as a music show, we need to channel their energies so that they start seeing their radio slot as a space to create and disseminate radio content. We’ll be following closely the print version of Upstart as primary way to generate content, there’s also the various out of town workshops and trips that Upstarters will be going on as another source of content. Overall , things are starting to come together slowly, after relooking at the design and structure of the Yung Amplified show, we’re now making sure that we work on the skills necessary to create the content we’d like for the show.

 An important logistical component of this partnership working well was transport, it seems our transport for the remainder of the partnership has been sorted, this after a slight hic-cup which almost led to the team not being able to meet this weekend. We have been assured that we won’t have to worry about transport, this is a great relief because on rainy days it would be difficult for the Upstartersto walk to the workshops. This also allows us to give the show our undivided attentio

Let the games begin

                                          Preaching interviewing techniques

I almost want to jump up and down with excitement.  I’ve been doing radio now for the past two and a half years and things can start getting familiar. There’s nothing like the opportunity to share something you’re passionate about with people who are eager to learn, to rekindle the joy of doing something you love. Am excited to relay everything I know about radio to the young Upstarters. Am equally keen to hear what ideas have been brewing in their minds since they heard they’d be part of this project because their input, in terms of content, is the most important element in producing three hours of infotainment for Yung Amplified.
This past weekend we held a workshop to induct the Upstarters into radio production. The workshop served as an introduction to the very basics of radio. We met the group of six Upstarters, two boys and 4 girls, who’ll be working with us in the weeks to come. They come from various high schools around Grahamstown and are mainly in grade nine or ten. Before the workshop started we got into pairs for an icebreaker. My partner was Ziphozihle Goje a grade nine learner from Marry Waters High School. For the icebreaker we had to interview our partner and do a role-play in front of everyone as either a bored, loud, extremely excited or sad radio presenter. I unfortunately had to play a bored radio Dj after finding out the most interesting thing about Ziphozihle. She told me that when she grows up, she wants to be a forensic scientist. I thought to myself, wow, I didn’t even know what that was when I was her age. I have a liking for people who are almost unreserved in their dreaming that fearlessness is all you need to make you dreams a reality. I certainly hope she will be as bold in her contributions to the show.

After the rounds of role playing we wanted to find out what is it about radio that interests the learners. They took turns telling us why they loved radio, majority of the response were music orientated, a couple mentioned their favourite radio DJs and one learner, Roche from PJ Olivier High School said he is really interested in the technical side of radio production. This is an interest we can exploit later on as we produce Yung Amplified, every team needs to have that one person who will take care of the technical intricacies of radio production.

The workshop got underway, we focused firstly on scripting for radio, impressing on the group that writing for the eye is different to writing for the ear. After that session I took the group through interviewing techniques. I’ve conducted several interviews over my short career, as part of my presentation I shared some lessons from my experience. My colleague Mike Moodie taught the group how to use the recorders. The learners were paired and shared a recorder, looking, touching, inserting and pressing at Mike’s instruction. At this point I thought I would make myself useful and walk around helping out where I could. As anything technical goes, practice makes perfect, in the weeks to follow we’ll be re-visiting the recorder session. We then proceeded to take the group to the studio,  and each of them got a chance to be interviewed and recorded so that they could hear if their radio voices lived up to their expectations.

                                         Learning how to use a recorder

 The group responded well to the presentations and activities of the workshop. No one was forthcoming with questions, I don’t know if this is a reflection of a well put together workshop or maybe that they haven’t warmed up to us yet. We’ll be meeting again during the week on Wednesday afternoon and the Upstarters promised that they’d all be joining us. The only glitch with this arrangement is that two girls from Marry Waters finish school at 3pm and we plan on meeting at 2pm. It’s vital that we have all the learners at these workshops as we are still in the early stages of our project. The team will now have to find a way around this anomaly before things start getting serious, for now the girls have agreed to come in for the last hour of the mid-week workshops.

We have been quite ambitious as the group of fourth year students working with this group, regarding how we would see this partnership working in terms of facilitation and production. From our side a quick jump into things was a method we were going to use to facilitate this project. The plan was to give the learners the skills necessary for them to be independent radio show contributors at a fast pace.

 One of the reasons why we chose this route is a concern raised by the Upstart representative about last year’s partnership. According to Shireen Badat, last year’s team took quite a while to get the learners to produce something that would be broadcast for a three hour show.

 After a presentation to our lecturer about our plans for this partnership and where we see the show going in the next few weeks, we need to go back to the drawing board.  We need to come up with ideas where we will sort of hold the learners hands through this process and slowly allow them to be independent. A kind of strategy that will see the learners get comfortable with being story tellers be it live on air in the studio or using the recorder.

 The one thing that leaves me uneasy about this way of doing things is time, what a precious entity. This strategy calls for more investment of time to this project, more than what we are already putting in. For Yung Amplified this means, things will be moving at a slower pace with regards to show casing the cool ideas we’d conceptualised for the programme.

I have a million and thousand things to do within 24hours as it is. Am panicking almost hyper ventilating at the thought of what this means for time I have on my other projects. I have a documentary in the pipeline and there’s plenty of leg work to be done with that. The thing about journalism is that people aren’t just waiting for you to interview them, you need find a way to squeeze yourself into their life without being a nuisance.  I foresee the next few weeks being about juggling, balancing and meeting my commitments.  My life as a micro manager of all the fine details of this degree starts now. I am a big girl, I need to take a time out, do a short woosah and then put on my superwoman vest and make things happen before the deadline.