Newspapers part of research into press freedom

Date: 05 June 2015 By: Andries van Zyl

The past two weeks the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror have played host to a very special guest, Ms Jennifer Karchmer.

Karchmer is an American journalist monitoring and defending freedom of the press. She is a volunteer with Reporters Without Borders (USA) and the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and works on behalf of the journalistic profession around the world. She boasts an impressive career, dating back to 1991, working as a reporter for CNN, the Associated Press (AP), Gannett McClatchy, the New York Post, and several radio stations. She has reported from Wall Street, the White House and the 2010 Winter Olympics held in Vancouver.

But how did this fighter for press freedom end up in the small-town offices of theZoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in Louis Trichardt?

“About a year ago, Anton van Zyl, the owner and publisher of the Zoutpansberger andLimpopo Mirror, invited a journalist to serve as guest editor and share tricks of the trade with fellow reporters in a ‘news exchange.’ As members of the ISWNE (International Society of Weekly Newspapers Editors), we shared conversations with hundreds of other journalists on a group discussing the ethics of newspapers, how to publish letters to the editor, how reporters should cover protests and crime and anything else related to community journalism,” Karchmer said.

Karchmer read Van Zyl's invite from her home in Bellingham, Washington state. At that time, she was serving as a college professor teaching journalism and communication at Western Washington University. The invite immediately caught her interest as a correspondent for Reporters Without Borders. “Freedom of the press was my passion and my beat. In fact, in 2012, I spent six weeks in Reykjavik, Iceland, interviewing journalists and studying their media outlets,” Karchmer said. She viewed the invite as an opportunity to do the same kind of research in South Africa.

From there, plans were set in motion for her trip to South Africa. Since then, she had moved to France in August last year to study French. “After several emails and Skype calls, we hammered out the details of the visit,” Karchmer said. She added, however, that she was somewhat apprehensive about her visit to South Africa. “I booked my flight in mid-April, the same day I read headlines that said ‘South Africa moves to defuse anti-immigrant violence’ and ‘Xenophobic violence on the rise in South Africa.’ What’s going on in South Africa? Did I make a mistake? Would I be safe?” Karchmer asked herself, with many of her friends fearing for her safety. “I too was concerned because my only image of South Africa was formed from news reports, movies and books,” Karchmer said.

After doing a bit more research, as any good journalist would do, Karchmer decided to follow through on her plans and landed in South Africa on 24 May.

Reflecting on her experience of the local newsroom thus far, Karchmer said that the atmosphere was reminiscent of weekly papers in the United States. “A friendly, casual, team environment where the editorial, marketing, sales and production staff all understand that weekly deadline rhythm,” said Karchmer.

Karchmer said that she noticed that many issues that American journalists faced were the same here in Limpopo. “For example, covering the scene of a fire or robbery can be tense approaching the police and getting information. It’s a balancing act as the police need to do their job and sometimes don’t have time for reporters,” Karchmer said.

Karchmer has already enjoyed many unique South African experiences, such as biltong,droëwors, braaivleis and even load shedding. “Last week, sitting in my flat in Louis Trichardt the lights went out suddenly at 17:00. Was this a blackout? A transformer blew? I recalled all the talk of load shedding, South Africa’s solution to the power-supply-and-demand situation, and now I was experiencing it first-hand,” Karchmer said.

But no visit to South Africa would be complete without a visit to the Kruger National Park (KNP). Karchmer initially looked forward to the experience, but admitted that she was a bit apprehensive as she read the news headlines on Tuesday and Wednesday of the American woman who was killed by a lion at the lion park outside Johannesburg. “I will definitely keep my window closed,” Karchmer said. She will visit the KNP on Thursday and Friday.

Karchmer will conclude her South Africa visit next week when she will visit the Tshwane University of Technology and talk to journalism students about newswriting, the US media, social media reporting techniques and layout and design of newspapers.

Viewed: 1995

Andries van Zyl

Andries joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in April 1993 as a darkroom assistant. Within a couple of months he moved over to the production side of the newspaper and eventually doubled as a reporter. In 1995 he left the newspaper group and travelled overseas for a couple of months. In 1996, Andries rejoined the Zoutpansberger as a reporter. In August 2002, he was appointed as News Editor of the Zoutpansberger, a position he holds until today.

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