/ 9 September 2011

Seeking social justice reporter

As violent service delivery protests continue to rock the country, proper media coverage of the structural poverty and inequality in South Africa has become more important than ever before.

The Mail & Guardian and the Eugene Saldanha Memorial Fund’s first annual fellowship in social justice reporting is drawing to a close and applications are invited for next year.

The fund, a project of CAF Southern Africa, allowed its first recipient, Kwanele Sosibo, to delve into the lives of communities characterised by inequality and social injustice and to tell their stories.

“For me, things really got under way quite early with the Conference of the Democratic Left, out of which emerged the Democratic Left Front,” said Sosibo about his fellowship.

“Witnessing the left’s spirited attempt to coalesce its various struggles into a cohesive unit against the backdrop of mounting ‘service delivery’ protests was the perfect cauldron for stories that naturally fed into each other.”

The fellowship is designed to enable a journalist to spend a year focusing on stories that deal with poverty, inequality and the realisation of human and socioeconomic rights.

The M&G‘s editor-in-chief, Nic Dawes, praised the coverage the fellowship has produced so far. “I am convinced there is no story more important for South Africa, but the challenge is to tell it in a way that is relevant, meaningful and human,” he said.

Sosibo said the experience he had gained through the fellowship was invaluable. “I have had the opportunity to work with seasoned editors, who have encouraged me and given me the space to fly. They have patiently worked through my copy as well as sharpened my insights. Others have given me direct support, for example, by giving me books as reference.”

He noted that there was a lack of reporters in this field. “This could be an opportunity to develop a niche, which is sorely overlooked in South Africa. We are a developmental state, after all.”

The fellowship offers a one-year contract post, based at the M&G‘s offices in Johannesburg.

The successful candidate will report to the news editor and be required to provide news stories and features for all platforms of M&G Media Ltd. These must go beyond the statistics to illuminate the lived experience of poverty in South Africa and provide insights into the structural conditions of inequality that continue to divide the country.

Dawes said: “For a journalist this is an exceptional opportunity to do the kind of sustained, patient and thoughtful journalism that is often pushed to the sidelines by the demands of the news diary, and to do it in a supportive environment.”

See the advertisement in our Recruitment section or look online at mg.co.za/ESMF2012