Mandela and the newsroom

I am working at the largest online news company in South Africa and the media environment in this country has been a little tense in recent weeks.

Nelson Mandela was the first black president of this country, but he is also a living symbol of the anti-Apartheid struggle. Many South Africans feel a strong emotional connection to him, not necessarily as a politician, but as the face of their tumultuous history.  Many South Africans even refer to Mandela by terms of respect and endearment: Madiba, or Tata. Mandela is a few days shy of his 95th birthday and he has now been hospitalized for one month. Many assume these are his final days.

When he entered the hospital in Pretoria (other side of the country from Cape Town) on June 8 with a recurring lung infection, the local media immediately took notice. Within a few days, the international media had taken notice too.

Almost as long as Mandela has been in the hospital, journalists from several local and international outlets have been camping outside the hospital. One organization, reportedly, is even sub-letting an apartment across the street from the hospital to get better views and satellite reception from the balcony.

While those journalists have been waiting for weeks, tweeting, photographing, and reporting any signs of activity, other journalists are preparing from the office. Articles, undoubtedly, have been written in advance about Mandela’s death. Organizations have created plans for how to report the information when the time comes. Portraits of Mandela with 1918-2013 written on them have likely already been photoshopped.

It’s a little morbid, but is it wrong?

If you trust user comments, it certainly is. “Vultures!” web users have written under photos of journalists sitting outside the Pretoria hospital, “Leave the Mandela family alone!”

The Mandela family has expressed varying opinions on the matter.

“I just think it’s in bad taste, it’s crass," Makaziwe Mandela said about the media’s treatment of the situation in a scathing interview on national television.

On the other hand, Mandela’s wife, Graca Machel issued a statement thanking supporters—including the media—from around the world saying, “We have felt the closeness of the world and the meaning of strength and peace.”

In the age of the Internet, we are more connected than ever. That has allowed people worldwide to share their expressions of concern about the ailing political hero. But it has also put a heavy responsibility on media outlets.

News24’s slogan is, “Breaking News. First.” It’s a promise to deliver information as fast as technology will allow. It’s also difficult standard to maintain. 

The speed of Internet news demands that the media must be prepared to report information quickly, but social rules say it’s impolite to pay attention too closely. So for now, our job in the media is a little awkward.

Double discrimination

The first green card for a foreign spouse in a same-sex marriage was issued in the USA this week. But the USA is not the only country in the world where gay rights and issues of immigration are hot topics.

Xenophobia has been in the news a lot recently in South Africa. This country receives more refugees than anywhere else on the continent. Unfortunately, as the refugee populations rise, so too do tensions between locals and foreigners.

Many refugees in South Africa face additional discrimination because they identify as LGBTI. Homosexuality is illegal in 38 African countries. In some countries, it is a death penalty offense. South Africa, on the other hand, was the first country in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation in their constitution. South Africa has by far the most liberal laws regarding LGBTI rights on the African continent. But as many sexual refugees find out, homophobia still exists in the country.

My friend Shannon is interning with an organization called Passop here in Cape Town. She has been working with LGBTI refugees and helped me connect me with some interviews so that I could make this video about the issue.

Watch this video on News24.

POTUS

Being a journalist is pretty cool.

Remember when I saw the president of South Africa?

Well, last night I saw the president of the United States.

Contrasting the two experiences is somewhat funny. My News24 coworker who was with me at both events admitted she was more excited to see Obama. "Does that make me a bad South African?" she asked.

When I saw Jacob Zuma, my coworker and I heard about the event in the morning, walked a few blocks from our office to the South African government buildings, then breezed past security to hear the president give a very brief PR-stunt-style speech alongside American actor Danny Glover. I was able to get in with my foreign driver's license, and I stood an arm's length away from Zuma.

Seeing President Obama wasn't quite as easy.

First of all, this is the most expensive presidential trip in history. Obama brought massive amounts of security along with him on his three-country tour of Africa, including, but not limited to, an aircraft carrier docked offshore with a fully staffed medical trauma center, bulletproof limousines, and Marine helicopters. The Obamas also canceled the family safari they had scheduled in Tanzania because the nature park was posing too much of a logistical challenge for the presidential snipers.

My colleagues and I had to submit scanned copies of our passports to the White House about a week in advance of Obama's visit. Then we had to wait until the day before the event to find out if we would be able to get in. Four of us submitted requests and the US Embassy only granted permission for three of us to get in--no explanation offered.

Obama wasn't scheduled to speak until about 6 pm, but we had to arrive at the event venue with all of our equipment at 11 am. We then had to leave the equipment there so that security could rummage through our stuff and sniff through everything all day. We came back at 4 pm and were issued our official White House badges and escorted to our official press area. The press area was separated from the audience by a little divider and the audience was separated from the podium by a little divider and several security guards.

 I wondered why the sharply dressed man in the press area next to me wasn't snapping photos like all of the other journalists, then I realized he was a secret service guy.

Obama touched on predictable points about Africa in his speech--government corruption, poverty, women's rights, development. He also paid homage to Nelson Mandela (who is still in the hospital after three weeks) throughout his speech. 

But my personal favorite part of Obama's speech was when he told an anecdote about his time at Occidental College. I don't think he saw my fist pump though.

Obama looked and sounded pretty much just the way I thought  he would in real life. The one thing that struck me from hanging around snapping photos of him for an hour was that this guy is amazingly photogenic. I ended up taking over 700 photos and hardly got any where he's making funny faces. What a pro!

See my best photos from Obama's speech on News24.

The data dilemma

Are you addicted to your smartphone? Are you reading this on a mobile device right now? Have you totally learned to take data for granted the way I have in the US?

For the average South African, a smartphone is a huge luxury and data plans are prohibitively expensive. So I found one tech start-up here that's trying to work with that.

Most tech start-ups you hear about, especially in the mobile world, are focused on going more advanced, more hi-tech, more hi-def, etc. Cinemo, on the other hand, is trying to develop something super low-tech. By simplifying streaming and reducing the resolution of videos to the smallest file possible, the Cinemo app is allowing South Africans to watch videos on low-end cell phones for the first time. For a lot of people, that could mean much easier access to media.

Here's a video I made about it.

Watch this video on News24.

Wine tasting

Guess how much it costs for a flight of six delicious wines at a beautiful, idyllic vineyard in the winelands outside of Cape Town. Two dollars!

If that didn't make you salivate, check out the pictures.

(You should see a photo slideshow here. If you don't see it, update your Flash settings or click here.)

Two potrayals of townships

Here are two musical portrayals of South African township* life.

The first, by Dr. Malinga and DJ Vetkuk, is a song I've actually heard played whenever I've been into a township. It seems to be extremely popular. It makes township life look pretty festive, if a little difficult.




The second song is by the controversial Afrikaans rap/rave group, Die Antwoord. The band has an international cult following and they are known worldwide for being really freaky.

A month ago I would have just thought this was a weird song starring some creepy people, but my time in Cape Town has taught me enough about South African gang culture to pick up on some of what they're talking about here.

The American flags scattered throughout the video have little to do with the actual USA, and more to do with the biggest and most notorious gang in Cape Town who call themselves "The Americans."

You'll also hear references to the "26's," "27's," and "28's," in this song. Those are the three major prison gangs in the area.



*Townships are a communities on the outskirts of South Africa's major cities. Townships have their roots in the days when the laws of this country dictated who could live where according to race and/or social status. Those laws are gone, but the communities, and the systematically created racial divisions largely remain. Townships can be nice, middle class communities, but oftentimes townships have third world conditions. Some townships near Cape Town are especially notorious for gang violence and drug trade.

South African New Jerseyans

Ain't globalization funny?

Living in the US, it's so easy to start thinking that there's nothing outside the borders of our country. We turn on the TV and see American actors, we get our coffee from an American chain, we shop (for products made in China) at American stores. I end up spending so little time thinking about other countries while I'm in the US, that when I do travel abroad I always feel surprised and a little guilty when I find out how much time the rest of the world spends thinking about us.

I arrived in Cape Town shortly after the country's first Burger King opened just down the street from my office (past the McDonald's and KFC) and a month later, people are still lined up out the door waiting to try their first Whopper. I have had conversations with South Africans about Paula Deen, Kim Kardashian, and Sarah Palin.

"Yeah...when I hang out with you guys I feel like I'm in a TV show," our Australian friend, Erin, remarked to me and my fellow Yankees the other day, when we were talking about the presence of American media overseas.

Yet, for the ubiquitousness of most parts of American culture, it's always interesting to find out which things don't make it overseas. A South African I talked to could quote Jon Stewart, but had never heard of Stephen Colbert, for example.

How different would life be if the majority of the media you consumed was produced internationally? When I turn on my little TV here, on one channel "Master Chef: Austrailia" will come on, followed by the American sitcom "Two Broke Girls," followed by a very intense and emotional-sounding Afrikaans drama series. The commercials in-between will often advertise American or other international products but will be voiced by a South African.

I spend a lot of time pondering this stuff, so it was a little surreal, but not necessarily surprising, when my boss spun around in his chair on Tuesday and asked me if I wanted to go take photos of a new Broadway show that had just arrived in Cape Town: "Jersey Boys."  As is often the practice with Broadway, the producers of the show shipped the concept overseas, but hired a local cast. So the show I saw was the same script, music, choreography and technical design as one might have seen on in New York in 2005, but it was performed by South Africans. So I was a Californian journalist, sitting in a Cape Town opera house snapping pictures of South African performers in a New York production which tells the story of an internationally famous singing group from New Jersey.

For the most part, the show seemed to be well received, though I did notice I was the only person who laughed at a line in the play about a 1960s model Cadillac. "It's a great car! It gets almost eight miles-per-gallon." Since they use neither miles nor gallons as forms of measurement in most parts of the world, that joke gets lost in translation.

Most of the rest translated though...even through the South African actors' slightly awkward-sounding attempts at New Jersey accents.

See the rest of my photos from the production on News24.