This might be the final post

I finished my articles on Thursday. The site was nearly done but for some bugs. My supervisors will fix those. We then had our journalism class party. I finished my mini essay today and handed it in.

here it is:

Essay:

The lessons that I have learned from the Jukskei river project (Jukskei project) about how to be a successful and valuable investigative journalist have been very useful. Unfortunately, the website is not as I envisaged it to be. This is mainly due to what the supervisors were able to do and poor planning on the students’ part. However, that the journalism students and their supervisors have created a site that may be less advanced than they wished for, but one that delivers in-depth journalism to its audience.

The project confirmed it is important to use honest, reliable sources. These resources must be used with time constraints in mind. A source can be useful when it gives you background information but soon it needs to justify the time you spend with it by giving you enough specific information that you can use for your story.

You need to predict how much cross-checking with other sources the information needs. If the cross-checking would appear to take too long, you would be better off to search for another source or to change the focus of that part of the story.

It was a challenge to have such assumedly well-informed sources. I used Paul Fairall, chairman of the Jukskei River Catchment Management Forum, and Marian Laserson, an environmentalist who has worked with him. When I tried to evaluate their information’s credibility by asking potential leads if they had information about the Jukskei project, I was told that Fairall and Laseron were experts on things related to the Jukskei river and they would be able to help me.

I acquired information not related to my group’s topic. Most of it was passed along to other groups. We were warned many overlaps would occur.

About halfway through the project, it seemed that everyone in my group had been gaining the information they needed and receiving fairly distributed attention from sources.

One group member who had contact details and a relationship with sources that could help me, did not invite me to talk to them or even make me aware of their existence. She only did so when the website production stage was nearly finished. This was not necessarily intentional.

I hope I did not do anything similar. All people working in groups on investigative projects need to balance their will to succeed as individuals and as a group.





I became more confident with interviewing people. Group dynamics influenced my individual output here too. Initially I let some of the people in my group gain too much attention from subjects. I think this was because I wanted everyone to feel comfortable working with me. Soon, however, I made an effort to gain what I wanted from the subjects.

The Power Reporting conference taught me how to use Internet search tools effectively. I learned how to attain more specific results from the search engine, Google, and how to look at websites’ archives.

Regarding assessing the topic, my group’s finished articles do not necessarily immediately relate to it.

However, the supervisors accepted that overlapping of subject areas across the groups would occur. If not that many of my group’s stories can be related to the river’s past, they can be related to what the state of the river will be in the future.

My main articles were profiles on Fairall and Laserson. These two are of few people who rehabilitate and protect the Jukskei river. I also wrote a sidebar profile on the person who could be seen as their forerunner in terms of their relationship to the Jukskei, Wendy Bodman.

I struggled to find information about her. She had passed away and I could not find any records of her family in phonebooks or on the internet. I assumed her children emigrated from South Africa, do not list their phone numbers, or, if female, took their husbands’ surnames.

Eventually I came into email contact with South Africa newspaper, The Star’s writer, James Clarke. He has been heavily involved in environmental pursuits in South Africa. He co-founded the Endangered Wildlife Trust and, in 1981, spearheaded the campaign to stop mining in the Kruger National Park. I requested more information about Bodman from him but he has only given me a phone number to contact him on, recently, after the project has been completed.

Laserson gave me a lot of information about herself for her profile. I should have spoken to her family members personally, though. I could have emailed her sons living in Australia.

Noticeably, I did not get to ask many personal questions of Laserson to her face, because other group members were asking her about details of their stories simultaneously. Thankfully, she responded to all my emails

Fairall did not respond to any of the emails I sent him. I had to use Wits’ phone cards to speak with him on his cell-phone number. He does not have an office or home phone land line.

There were usually phone cards available. It would have been nice to have been told about the extra code for the department’s second phone sooner in the project than in the second last week.

Fairall invited me to a braai at his house; where I learned about his personal life and history.

My main multimedia piece was supposed to involve the litter trap at Bezuidenhout Valley Park in eastern Johannesburg. The trap collects litter and sewage. I wanted to report how Edmund Sibisi, the security guard and operator spends his days at work. I realised this could have been seen as another profile. I also planned to create a video showing how he operates the litter trap. This would be embedded into Stevie-Mae Kruger, one of my group member’s stories.

I had to rely on the transport of others to get to sources and filming locations. I do not have access to a car and public transport is limiting in terms of where its routes are.

Due to my reliance on group members for transport but also how economical it was for people to cover different stories or varying aspects of the same story at the same venue or by using the same car journey, I went to the litter trap with Kruger, as she was writing about it. This made it more difficult for me to plan what “shots” I needed on film and how I would achieve them.

In video journalism, professionals often recommend that journalists conduct reconnaissance visits of subjects. The first of two visits to the trap effectively became a reconnaissance trip. Kruger was working to acquire the information needed to write her story, which prevented me from filming shots that suited my audience in terms of visual composition and content.

Thankfully, Kruger also needed to return to the trap for a second visit, to gain some information for her story. She was prepared to be directed in the shots I constructed. However, she did not always take into account how she may have been disrupting some of my shots by moving at the incorrect time or by speaking too quickly or interrupting some of Edmund’s answers with more questions or her opinions.

Also, Sibisi does not speak English particularly well. He therefore did not understand my or Kruger’s questions completely. When asked about his religious life and how he said that he did his work for “God”, he thought he was being asked to describe his garden. He also changed the subject often when answering specific questions.

Since it was so difficult to edit the footage concerning Sibisi, the video piece about him was of a standard too low for what I felt this website deserved. The piece about how the trap works was made more understandable by a longer editing process and subtitles. It was very challenging to write the subtitles as I did not always understand what Sibisi was saying.

Another group member, Katharine Child, invited me to film a piece on the LifeStraw; a device that an organisation wanted to distribute to Africa’s poor so that they could make dirty water completely drinkable.

Andrew Squire from VerticalLife would show that the device worked by drinking from the Jukskei river personally. I did not understand that she wanted me to interview him on camera as she wanted the video to be humorous and she felt I had an ability to be funny on camera.

I, however, had more experience operating the camera. Ultimately, I filmed the piece and asked many of the questions and Child filmed me doing “solo to-camera work” at a pond at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits).

We agreed the byline of the piece would be mine and that she had her main multimedia piece already. Then, supervisor Mayers explained to me that the piece on Sibisi’s day was substandard. I decided to elect the piece about the LifeStraw as my main multimedia work.

The LifeStraw piece has its own challenges. Filming Squire drink was difficult because he was moving from a standing to a kneeling to a higher-kneeling position. The camera is small and one needs extremely steady hands to avoid shakiness. The journalism department at the University of the Witwatersrand does not have tripods for its students either. I was also having to navigate through the Jukskei river, whilst holding the camera as still as possible in both hands, conceptualise shots in my head and then film them with Squire moving around.

I could not undertake a reconnaissance mission first because Squire was unavailable. He was even in a rush to go away on holiday while I wanted to film him.

I lacked in editing experience. Final Cut software would have made editing easier as it has more capability than iMovie software. More available Apple Macintosh computers would have ensured supervisors could view drafts sooner and hence more, higher quality drafts, could have been created.

I believe and Child agrees that it is easier to edit radio than video pieces. Hence, I question if the two media will be marked, taking into account this difference.

With respect to the final Juskei project website, supervisors made promises that were not met. After being instructed to study websites to learn about the value of their multimedia functions, we had very limited say in how we wanted the website or our respective group pages to appear. We had roughly thirty minutes to conceptualise and convey our wants to the web designers. They also were often unable to create many things we requested in the proposals.

The project was slowed down by other obstacles too. A class of 17 people was expected to use two Apple Macs. This was when the supervisors were not using them.

I am happy with my group’s title page on the website. I would have liked to have had more interactivity, including images like “exploded” into bigger sizes when the user’s cursor was placed over it. I believe that, bearing in mind the web developers’ skills, the page my group conceptualised and designed with them was impressive. I like the simple layout of pictures and story blurbs.

The rest of the groups’ title pages are of a similar standard. The other groups were promised that they could place some sort of pattern under their basic story and picture layout.

The one group did receive a map on its page but it was a visually simple drawing. The other group does not have the spider webs, the members requested, drawn on their page. The overall website entrance page features a nice “moving map”. This is thanks to, to my knowledge, work by supervisor Mayers.

However, I would have liked it to be more interactive. For example, if a user moved his cursor on one of the pictures, music or a voice-over could play. I fear that the page only has a moving map with a few pictures “popping up” as a user moves her mouse along it, that user may me disappointed because it did nothing else.

Other than that the website is valuable because it contains over thirty pieces of media and users can consume this media and navigate around the website with ease.

The overall degree of newsworthiness about stories about the Jukskei river is unlikely to change in a week because the river’s problems and rehabilitation projects are long-term.

But, some stories like Gangat’s piece concerning the conspiracy regarding the legality of Waterfall Estate’s operations are time-bound. If the operations are legal or not could be ascertained if, for sake of argument, sources decided not to withhold certain information, for example.

Too much time was spent on research as compared with production. Projects like this need not be longer despite how people like South African newspaper Daily Dispatch editor, Simon Trench, who has coordinated investigative projects, says one is never finished with such projects. One has to set a time limit and work within it.

Even if the project should have been planned differently and better resourced, the website met its goals of being user-friendly and informative. Further, I have learned how to improve as an investigative journalist.

Thank you to all who read this blog. Have a good 2010!

Last day

The project basically ends today. The web site has to go live. We have been putting it together since Monday. Next Monday, I am required to hand in a mini essay. I just hope that all goes up on time. It's just annoying to have only two macs between about 20 people.

Anyway, I think by this stage, all of my stuff has been edited and put on the site properly.

Now, I wait for tings to be finished off.

Writing

So. This week, I've been trying to edit my videos. It's taking quite a while.

It looks like I will end up with three video pieces. One will be about how the litter trap works. it catches litter. It will be embedded into Stevie-Mae's story about the trap. The second one will be about Edmund, the man who controls and secures the trap. The third one is about a thing called a LifeStraw. It is an apparatus with which one can purify water while drinking the water. I filmed a man drinking out of the Jukskei River with it.

My written stuff is nearly finished. I wrote a piece about the original river guardian, Wendy Bodman. She was the first person to map out the complete river systems of the Witwatersrand. My other two written pieces are profiles about the current river guardians, Paul Fairall and Marian Laserson.

I've written drafts. I am waiting on them to get back to me so that I can fill in some holes. I also need to create more texture and better structure.

lately - Yes, it's been a while

So over the last three days there was a power reporting conference. Then I wrote my investment exam. I wish I knew covariance of share with respect to market over variance of market "equalled" beta. I just didn't remember it.

Power Reporting was quite interesting. I learned a fair bit about how to conduct effective investigative research. Unfortunately, I don't think the conference did much for me in terms of getting a job or even basic networking; it seems the older people are willing to give advice, and the younger ones are just plain arrogant. I'm not sure what they're arrogant about.

Still, I was inspired by Raphael Rowe's story. He was jailed but later released as his punishment was a miscarriage of justice.

I might do journalistic work in this field. "Justice" is an entity that I hold very dear to myself. I think if journalism helps just one person; that's enough. However, I won't let anyone story overcome my life. I might be arrogant to say that one will anyway and I will remember writing this post, where I said that one wouldn't.

There were also some business journalism seminars. They were O.K.. I learned that my BCom degree should help in business journalism in a big way. Quite a bit of the stuff discussed was hence simple to me, but I tried to get a few "good" questions across, so I could learn answers I have wanted to know for a while.

I await my Investment 2 exam result after writing the exam today. It was a rough exam.

After the exam, I had a meeting with my team for the Jukskei project to discuss which stories were definitely going onto the website.

Tomorrow, I am going to try to edit at least one of the stories out of my litter trap footage. It will be how the trap works because I believe this is the harder piece to edit than the "Meet Edmund- the person who looks after the trap" piece.

This is mostly because when he described how the machine worked, Edmund pointed at things. I filmed Edmund pointing and then afterward, I tried to film that at which he was pointing.

I hope I can work out what he pointed at when!

Tomorrow, I am going t



The business stuff

The Great Bodman Search

I have been trying to locate Wendy Bodman - the once river guardian. She mapped out the water system of Johannesburg. A walking trail in Sandringham was named after her. I think I have enough information to write a side-bar about her but I would like to speak to her family and/or friends. Se passed away you see. Marianne Laserson - one of the river guardians with Paul Fairall said their kids went to preschool together in Sandringham. Unfortunately neither me nor Marianne can find the name Bodman in a phone book.

I have also tried South African genealogy websites. All I know is that Bodman is a German name - I knew that before looking for it on the net - and that some Bodmans live in Australia.

Best I keep hunting! Apparently Wnedy's husband was at Elphin estate?

SIDEBARS

I have been trying to find Wendy Bodman's family. I want to write a sidebar on her. My canal side bar will still happened as I have the odd bit of info and some pics and video.

Johannesburg Roads Agency - meeting Mr Hira

I went to the JRA on Tuesday with Zaheer. We met who I assume is an engineer. At first his demeanor matched the organisation's heavy security but after a few questions, he seemed to warm to us. I'm glad. He gave us an excerpt from a plan. I could more or less understand it. He told us how expensive it would be to fix all the roads in Joburg. To him, too much money had gone to the 2010 World Cup and to the Bus Rapid Transit System.

This guy seemed to take this depressing reality in his stride.

We then spoke to Mr Nellemans. He had an FHM picture or something in his office- at first I thought it was a mug of Vicky Beckham.

A lack of money seems to be a major problem for the JRA, not a lack of will to fix this city's problems. Hira said the JRA basically dealt with crises only because they never had the money or allowance granted to them by the government, to produce infrastructure and to upgrade things.

Then - on Wednesday - I went to Joburg Water - looking for old pictures of or plans for the culvers system (the canal system). No luck with Joburg Water - they were all on lunch.

We also got some maps and aerial pics of JHB from the JRA. However, the guy there idn't have the old plans pics I had asked him for the day before. He wasn't MR Hira. I don't think my request earlier was made clearly.

I have emailed and phoned Joburg Water but no one has responded to me.

At least I got pics of a culver by Bez Valley today. I walked in it. There were also people wlaking in it. t was viel spass ins canal. (It was lots of fun). Stevi and I tried to get into Gillooly's Farm but construction meant we didn't manage to find an entrance!

Back at the litter trap

Stevi-Mae and I went back to the trap today. Following the training session with Dave Mayers from Columbia yesterday,I looked at my litter trap footage from Monday. It was very shaky even if my composition was impressive - he said. I went home and did a shot list.

Stevi-Mae and I then went back to the trap today. MY visual piece is all about Edmund while she'll deal with the more technical aspects about the litter trap. Apparently, the Thames has nine litter traps for example. I'm sure the Thames is smaller than the Jukskei. There are even companies that make he traps which are rather simple in design.

I just looked at the footage from today and quite a bit looks usable. My video does jitter a bit nonetheless. I hope it comes right in the edit!

I feel that Edmund responded quite well to my questions today. I tried not to position him around too much - since I'm dealing with video journalism and not film.

I had a check list of the things I needed from the shoot. I more or less got them - even if Edmund had some fresh things to say today. I knelt in sewerage to improve shots-well, at least i hope it worked.

I also did some establishment - I'm here at the Bez Litter trap pieces with Stevie-Mae - the interviewer in my shoot. I rate I will use a piece where he discusses how the trap works to strengthen Stevie's story and then do a piece abot Edmund's work, his pay, the reason he does the job, etc.

I have about 2hrs of footage - so surely there's about 5 min of at least barely usable stuff in there.



EDMUND SIBISI

Economist with enviro interest wins Nobel prize

(PHOTO courtesy of http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/12185.html
Elinor Ostrom shared this year's Nobel Prize for economics with Oliver Williamson. Ostrom is the first female winner of the award.

"Ostrom has demonstrated how common property can be successfully managed by user associations", the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

Ostrom is an Indiana University professor. She was born in 1933. Her research looks to identify political legal and economic rules that prevent or help efficient and sustainable resource usage.

It's good to see the Nobel committee recognising the link between the economy and the environment.

Shot list for Litter Trap film

I'm filming at the litter trap again today after Dave was very constructive with his criticism yesterday.

dang, celtx not on this comp

do at home

Braai at Fairall's

"That's All is fair in love and war , dear".

That's how Paul spells his name out for people.

He was doing so when Katharine asked him for his name and number.

The braai was a lot of fun. Many people there said things like - "two weeks ago i would never have thought I'd be at a braai with such a great person etc.." Well, I'll take some credit please - ha ha - I hooked up my fellow journos with a source and he was some friends.

Seriously though, amongst all the "hospitalities", I think we made genuine friends with Paul. I like that. He told me many personal things and I have quite a bit of information with which to write a profile on him.

We met his dogs including Michael - head of security - a Jack Russell. We discussed his life, his family.

Paul has saved many people from drownings. He was also the first Leaping Wolf boyscout in Natal.

He is a major campaigner to save the African Bullfrog - the second biggest frog on Earth.

He stopped two highways by doing that.

Much more will be revealed in my profile of him, clearly.

We braaied nice Broadacres Spar meat. He says that's the best Spar in South Africa. We picked and cooked fresh vegetables from his garden.

Paul lives on this farm-type holding. This is until a major water fun park is built on it!

After going to school, Paul got a BA Law degree while in the army. He fought three times in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and in the Angolan War and as a mercenary in the Congo.

He also worked in cars, as a farmer and at a bottle store.

After the braai we drank wine and relaxed. Oh and Paul drinks Russian bear and Carling Black Label - that's in touch with the times!

Moday - Bez Valley litter trap

I went back to the litter trap today.

Stevi and i drove to Bez Valley to interview Edmund. The main goal for me was to film whatever I could. I recognise that I need to learn how to use the flipcam quickly because little chance of getting back to the trap particularly easily. Sure, I should coordinate my travel plans with Stevi if possible since she is doing the written component of that story and I rely on public transport otherwise.

We got there to find Edmund(the litter trap keeper and security guard) wearing a mask. He wasn't wearing one when we visited the week before with Paul.

I turned my camera one and tried to film the outer surroundings, particularly just behind Edmund. Then, I wanted to catch he and Stevi-Mae walking; at work. Unfortunately, Edmund just chatted to Stevi and they walked quickly ahead.

I caught up and just filmed. It was now clear that this interview would require on-the-fly filming work. I hope I picked up enough sound. The camera seems to operate in 1 dimension only. I will check out the quality of what I have and then I can decide on how much more I need to get, as I will be looking over the stuff i filmed with Dave Myers tomorrow. Dave is this guy from the States. I hear he studied at Columbia. He is the journalism department's new multimedia lecturer. I am eager to learn from him.

The trap itself has a paste of excrement on the floor. It looks like mud but it sure doesn't smell like it. I had to wade through it, as I tried to film.

I did a bit of shoot setting up - well, I asked Edmund to bend down over one part of the trap, where there is running water.

His English is not very good. Hence, when I asked him to explain how the trap worked, in a few sentences to the camera, he struggled. He then asked me if i was clear, to which I responded, "uhm yes".

We also checked out his garden - very interesting - so many different fruits - I wonder if people steal any - he said people steal other things from the trap - not just garbage - what a desperate situation.

God put Edmund there to help the river and society.

I admire this father from KZN who is so far from his children and wife.

No more days

I'm moving from a "Day - by- Day" blog style to a "by-subject" type approach. It's better and more manageable this way.

Thursday 15 October - Press Conference

I went to Paul Fairall's press conference.

It was rather interesting. We were well accomodated with awesome tea and biscuits. After that we sat in a fairly small conference room. It was Paul, Mariane, myself, a few other classmates, two enviro journalists (it turns out they are two of the few enviro journalists in SA, more on that in a later post), Shirley Ancer - Bruma's ward councillor, manager - Brownwyn Cartwright - but she didn't hang around for that long.

Paul sat at the head and gave a rather inspired speech. Some people might not have liked his reference to the four horsemen of the apocalypse, however.

I filmed quite a bit of stuff on a flipcam.

more later

Friday 16 OCt

We're two weeks in. I'm off to the municipal library today or is.

So I got back from the library.

It was fairly interesting. Stevi and I drove around trying to find parking. Eventually we did and then went to the security clearance point. The woman there said there was no library. yeah, well, we told her we wanted to look at council records at library on 12th floor and then we were allowed in.

We saw a sign that said as from 1 July (or something), students could no longer use the library. They were supposed to study somewhere else, and a list of libraries was given. Then we saw a librarian and went in.

We were shown where all the council minutes were. I was off on a search mission through them.

I didn't learn much.

I looked up things like "Jukskei" and "Bezvally". I learned that people like to spend money on Jukskei the sport, at least they did back then.

I learned they once fixed up a canal back in the 80s.

We were in the library from 11am to 1pm (when they closed for lunch); then I was off to fix my net at home, which is still not working, hence my lack of recent blog posts.

Day 7

vvvv

Environment -Carl Sagan

My mate sent me this today. It's quite inspiring; it's not just because it's full of cool movie references.



It's from a speech by Carl Sagan. He was chief mission planner at NASA and also their top scientist in the 90s. He also wrote science fiction.



The voyager probe that took the picture in the clip was launched in 1977
and we're still getting signals from it.

Day 6 - Monday 12 October

Today I went on the tour with Paul and Mariane - guardians of the river.

After struggling to find the intersection of Queen and Sports Streets, we waited for Paul Fairall in his vintage white Mercedes. The streets were full of "local folk". Some of them looked very dangerous or less fortunate than myself. There was an elderly man skulking about.

I also saw a one-armed man and a man wandering around who looked like he may have had cerebral palsy. Anyway after sitting around in our car like drug dealers or cops undercover looking for drug dealers.

Then Paul pulled-up in his classic car. First impressions say I'm looking at Colonel Saunders.



Mr Fairall, I presume?


He showed the spot by the park at Queen Street where the river first sees sunlight on an average day. I like these little extra details.

And so, the information overload had begun.

We learned all about Bertrams. There were three drownings there last year.

Thank God, I found Paul as my contact. I just trust that people will recognise that he is my contact and respect him. For example, my team organised to be present at his press conference where he discusses the ill treatment of Bruma Lake. Due to numbers constraints all 18 people on this journalism project cannot attend. We sorted out that one other group could attend the conference. This is the water/quality group. We could probably fit in the odd representative from another group but within reason. Sources are supposed to be nurtured.

So I'm doing a piece on Paul - I hope it's good. I hope my lecturer likes it.

Day 5 - Video Training

We received training in how to use the HD Flipcams today. It was useful to learn what mistakes are often made.

The visual quality is incredible for such a small, light device. Unfortunately the sound picks up too much around it and the stuff I would wnat to record is actually quite soft.

We made mini movies as an exercise. I will try to post them onto this blog on Monday.

Day 4 - research

Today I phoned my mate Benji Shulmonster, uh Shulman. He connected me to Paul Fairall - the "River god" in my eyes. Fairall is the chairman of the Jukskei River Forum.

He is an expert on the Jukskei River, I reckon. He has documents, video footage and experience.

I rate I will write a piece on him in the future. Also he told me about Wendy Bodman who mapped out many of Johannesburg's water systems. I read about her on Google. I'd like to write a piece about her too.

My team, group two has been granted the pleasure of going with him on a special tour around the river on Monday.

Fairall says the river is 2000 km long. I wonder if he included the spruits off of the river in that measurement.

He said he'd bring charts and other documents along on Monday so that's exciting. I hope I'll be able to get really good story ideas from him.

He told me the river was sewerage twice-diluted. This guy sounds rather passionate about the Jukskei. I respect this. I really think I'm going to learn something special form him.

We will be joined later in the trip by Marianne Laserson, an architect and former Johannesburg Town Planner.

We are starting our tour at a park in Bertrams where the river first sees sunlight.


Asides:

I've noticed many journalists are quick to run away from the economics of the environment. They just write pieces about how animals are dying and thigns are getting really bad and we should panic.

We cannot ignore environmental economics.

What is an environmental economist?

An environmental economist pursues theoretical and/or empirical studies into the economic effects of national and/or local environmental policies. The studies look at areas including air pollution, water quality, waste management, ozone depletion and climate change.

I studied Environmental Economics 3. I loved the lectures given to me by Professor Anthony Lumby. I’m still keen to do the honours course of it when time and timetabling permits.

One of the environmental economists I am particularly interested in is Robert O. Mendelsohn.


This major American economist contributed much to the economic thought around climate change. He contributed to the initial Copenhagen Consensus report.

He has been trying to find ways of valuing the environment. He’s looked at air pollution. He wants to measure the marginal damages of emissions across the United States.

He has also worked on valuing natural ecosystems, from valuing nontimber forest products and ecotourism in tropical rainforests, to coral reefs in the Caribbean and Australia, to measuring recreation in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

Recently, he has been concentrating on climate change and its different implications on agriculture, irrigation and livestock, in different continents.

http://environment.yale.edu/profile/mendelsohn/

A story I wrote about Wits' efforts into environmental education:
Future focus on the environment

The university is encouraging students to pursue research and careers related to climate change and environmental management.

“The importance of environmental issues, as discussed at the United Nations climate change meeting recently, cannot be understated,” said Commerce lecturer David Roche-Kelly.

Roche-Kelly, who lectures in finance and environmental economics, believes that even though people may feel the economic crisis takes precedence , the actual environment one lives in cannot be disregarded.

“Students feel they need to understand how a country like China is managing to grow at such comparatively exceptional rates. This is all well, but they need to realise that seeing how China manages its own environmental problems and the role it plays in the world in general are maybe even more important,” said Roche-Kelly.

In an article published on September 27 by the British Sunday Times, it was reported that China was “ready to police its greenhouse gas emissions for the first time by giving its official blessing to a domestic emissions trading scheme”. President Hu Jintao had declared at the same UN climate conference that his country would achieve a “notable” reduction in emissions over the next decade.

“I think people should not be so quick to see China as the leader in the climate change battle,” stated Roche-Kelly. “The scientists know what they are doing. Yes, China did not commit to capping energy intensive industries but they already have a two-level emissions tax in place. They are very worried about their decreasing water supply. Research has shown that the rivers that flow from the Himalayan Glaciers, which serve 1,3 billion people, may not reach the sea soon.”

Wits University already offers courses in environmental law, economics, engineering and sciences. This is one of the reasons why Kelly is organising an inter-disciplinary climate change research programme at Wits next year.

In an effort bring more attention to how students can play a role in environmental studies in Southern Africa, Professor Colleen Vogel, from the School of Geosciences and Environmental Studies, will present a lecture on Wednesday, October 14.

Vogel is a previous co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, shared with Al Gore.

In her lecture: Saving for a Rainy Day – Constraints, Challenges and Opportunities associated with Climate Change and Climate Variability in Southern Africa, she will present some of her research and involvement in climate change and variability in the Southern African region over the past 25 years.

Courtesy of Vuvuzela.org.za

By the way - the Investment test was quite tough but I await the results. There was an arbitrary question about the bond rating system of Standard & Poor's.
Next post - story ideas get some life

I hate blogger

I'm having major HTML problems with blogger

It's really upsetting me

Thursday Oct 8 - test

I have an Investment II test this evening. I hope it goes well. It seems by covering the 2nd half and maybe tougher half of the syllabus, I might as well be writing the exam.

So my day is full, since I have a meeting at 11 with my supervisor.

It's good to keep busy and to try to achieve success in things.

Day 3 - Lectures and meetings - starting to get more of a tangible idea

It was interesting.

We were treated to a lecture by Clive Tripkin. He's an expert on Johannesburg. My friend, Jens has one of his books. it's a pity that he didn't ever really get to speaking about the Jukskei though. It was nevertheless interesting to hear about spruits and such.

Chipkin seemed fascinated by the "spruits" he lived near to. He loves the braamies' spruit. My mate Jens says it's part of the Jukskei. Taht's all rather confusing to me.

Chipkin believes the Jukskei is a puddle. My friend, Neil said it was a mud puddle.

Jens bicycles near the river. He's training fro the 94-7 Highveld Cycle Challenge. He said the river is full of litter and there are homeless peopl near it. "It's rather sad" he said.

We then had a lecture from Dr Deanne Drake. She was very informative.

She told us about water quality studies etc.. It turns out many of the characteristics of the river like its pH levels are not as bad as she thought they would be. However, the ecoli levels are far greater than the World Health Organisation's 200 mark.

Next Paula Fray from IPS Africa (International Press Service Africa) gave us a lecture about reporting abotu water. It was quite itneresting.

Much of her tips seemed common sensical though.

Who knows, I might write a few pieces for IPS in future?

Day 2 - 6 October - lectures etc.

We had lecture about multimedia from a man called Scott from the Christian Science Monitor. It's not a religious group. It used to be a print newspaper but now it's online. It is based in Boston and was started by a church/ owned by one? Unfortunately even though he meant well, he veered off to talk about his NGO and AIDS.

We had a multimedia exercise after that. We look at websites. It was inspiring. The idea is to get an idea, I reckon. We don't have much time. So we should write before we get to the aesthetic.

Day 1

WE'RE GOING ON A TRIP

Meeting 1

We were assigned groups. Each team was allocated one topic at random.

The teams: (So it is clear who people are when they are referred to in posts)

Group 1: Zahida Gangat
Zaheer Cassim
Xola Potelwa
Diana Neille
Thabo Modisha

Group 2: Alistair - me
Katharine
Stevi-Mae
Clara
Emmah



Group 3:

Group 4:

The topics are - Water Quality and the Environment
People who live by the river
People who live off the river
The History and Future of the river

I was assigned the topic - The History and Future of the river.

Our first visit to the Jukskei

We went off to see parts of the river and the source.



Starting in Alexandra, we met a woman-Kim Kieser from WetAfrica. Kim runs a project which uses manpower to clean up rivers. The Soul Foundation works to rehabilitate 67km of the Jukskei River. The Jukskei is a highly polluted water system. The catchment houses more than 5 million people.

"Alex" was desolate. Yet, I feel like I have become accustomed to the poverty. It's common. Even though some people are born into poverty or it is brought upon them, some are to blame for their own predicament. This is an idea I wouldl ike to explore further. What is the historical root of these peoples' poverty.

If 1 million (unofficial figure) or so people live in "Alex", how many stay by the river. One 46th of the population of South Africa is a large amount and my sample is big. I cannot speak with 1 million people. I don't believe there ar THAT many folks by the river in any case. Clearly, I need to read a bit further.

I cannot become too "hung up" by the numbers. I need to conceptualise the definition of what kind of people and how many there are in each sample and which samples are applicable to which stories.

day 1 then was interesting. I saw poverty.


I saw a baby in a corner. The mother was near.











By stormwater drains



I saw children playing by dirty water.








This area needs to be cleaned up, clearly.
It is in Swettla in Alexandra township.








Dixon was a very interesting man. He used to live by the Jukskei. He nows lives in Thembisa. He was one of SOUL's first volunteers. I reckon he will be able to get me in contact with people who have had the Jukskei as a part of their lives for a long time.

Some story areas- how the canals were built. Zaheer and I are keen to get underground. The history of religion religion related to the river. How NGOs have fared in the past and how they will fare in the future.

Tomorrow - we have lectures and an online exercise.

I must embrace this project
with a steady mind.
It is too easy to show sympathy.
However, victims of circumastance are always respected.

Intro to the project

Hi

Good timing.

This blog documents the Wits Career Entry Journalism In-Depth Research Reporting project. I am a career entry journalism Honours student at Wits University. This project serves as some form of thesis.

The topic we have been assigned is "The Jukskei River".

My team is dealing with the past and future of the river.

Please embrace my thoughts as the process flows.

(Expect many more corny river puns)