Ferial Haffajee
South African radio listeners, whether they tune into Zulu, Tsonga, English or any of the other eight South African language news services, have grown used to the staid bulletins of the ”Here is the news at one o’clock” variety.
Yfm, Gauteng’s one-year-old commercial radio station, has broken out of the straightjacket culled from the British Broadcasting Corporation to mould a fresh form of news reporting which breaks all the rules. Just listen.
Nandipha Strydom announces the weather in ”iPitoli” and ”Jozi”. Savita Mbuli talks about ”kids” and ”cops” where the norm is ”children” and ”police officers”. And on a Thursday night, Strydom and DJ ”Rude Boy” Paul get the wires fired up with the programme Crossfire, a talk show which would have Cape Talk’s John Maytham and Radio 702’s Jon Qwelane green with envy for the heat it generates. The two have tackled everything from tattoos to the troubles of Shobashobane, in any languages callers want to speak. ”We can speak most languages,” says Paul. ”I can go with it. I try not to talk too intellectual. I keep it on a layman’s note. I keep things simple.”
Yfm’s news team hangs out in a lime- green office with matching chairs. At the digital editing machine (a computer which allows you to edit on-screen) bright young things in nose-rings, shaven heads and the latest threads keep an eagle eye on the Swazi elections and the moribund rand. The team of twentysomethings are passionate about news and not the sensational variety alone.
”Economics and money are related to all of us. If Anglo’s moving to the London Stock Exchange, what does it mean? Will there be less money around?”quizzes Nokutula Mazibuko.
While listening to the interviews being recorded in the newsroom, the healthy disrespect for authority and keen young news sense of Mazibuko and the team are audible.
They are led by news and information manager Thandanani Dlamini who keeps the pace short and punchy. Nine daily bulletins and two current affairs programmes, all embedded in pumping rhythms, have become the station’s signature. Bulletins are written in spoken English and mix in a little ”Scamto” – a street patois or tsotsi- taal.
Says Dlamini: ”There is a perception that all young people want to do is dance. But we’ve found that young people want to listen to news. They like it. They have opinions and they want to be heard.”
Sound-bites on local radio are usually filled with voices you’ll pick up repeatedly as you flip the dial. These are what are known in the trade as the ”talking heads” or ”dial-a-quotes” – experts you will hear again and again because they have an opinion on just about anything.
Yfm producer George Hill says sometimes the use of these ubiquitous voices is unavoidable. ”But we try as much as possible to create our own news sources. We are cultivating a body of stringers.”
Young stringers are the station’s ears and eyes in and around Gauteng whose brief is to find ”young news”. The focus on young news means the station campaigns on issues important to young people like safe sex and jobs. Unemployment is felt most acutely by the young who comprise almost half the population.
There is a youthful news angle in everything from how the young people in Swaziland voted to how the Jobs Summit aims to provide specific job creation for young people. ”Our news is about jobs, relationships and all the facets of being a young person in a transitional South Africa. It’s about filling a gap,” says Strydom.