- Title
- Journalism in a new democracy : the ethics of listening.
- Creator
- Wasserman, Herman
- Date Issued
- 2012-09-19
- Date
- 2012-09-19
- Type
- Text
- Identifier
- vital:577
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008551
- Description
- [Conclusion] I started this lecture by recalling how, as a youngster, it was stories that helped me to understand the country I was growing up in, and helped me imagine the lives of others that I did not read about in the media of that time. For journalism in a new democracy such as South Africa to serve more than an elite, for it to enable citizens to actively practice their citizenship through media, for it to treat all South Africans with dignity, it would have to learn to listen across the different lines that continue to keep South Africans apart – journalists would have to learn to listen to the stories of those on the other side of the railway line, the breadline, the picket line, the barbed wire fence. What would this listening mean for journalists in practice? Let me end by returning to the coverage of the Marikana massacre. In a recent interview with Greg Marinovich, the journalist that did the investigation that cast doubt on the official accounts of the events, he was asked if what was needed for better journalism was more investment of resources. ‘Do we need a team (or teams) of journalists to get to the bottom of this?’ he was asked. Marinovich responded as follows: “I wouldn't say that. I think other journalists have been spending more time there than I have (…) It's about opening your eyes and looking at what people are telling you, looking at their stories.”
- Format
- 35 p.
- Format
- Publisher
- Rhodes University
- Language
- English
- Relation
- Wasserman, Herman (2012) Journalism in a new democracy : the ethics of listening. Inaugural lecture delivered at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 19 September 2012.
- Rights
- CC BY-NC-SA : Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
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RU Inaugural Lectures
Wasserman, Herman (Prof)
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