LOCAL MEDIA COMMUNITIES UNDER TERRORISATION

PICTURE: THAMI DICKSON

BY: Samkele Letese

The local community media is under threat. All forms of media, be it radio, TV or/and print. The ever looming threat is of course the competition they’re engaged with the larger commercial media, those huge corporations with vast resources in comparison to the community media.

The community media can’t compete with the resources of the larger commercial media houses. They lose a great deal of audiences to these media houses, and more importantly, they lose vital advertisement revenue.

There is, however, an important place community media in our societies, a very significant one. Community media offers information specific to the community it is designated to. These information pillars fill the void within the community the larger media houses miss. This is one of the reasons why the ECAC (Eastern Cape Aids Council) approached the local media houses to a workshop, to reach the gaps the larger media houses missed. The aim of the ECAC workshop was to reeducate the communities of the Eastern Cape about HIV and forming a strategy of how to reach the community at large.

There was workshop also served as a platform to educate media practitioners in the dos and don’ts when reporting HIV or Aids related stories or content. There was an extensive introspection for community media houses, especially with the way each sector reported on matters concerning the HIV and/or AIDS. The sharing of ideas with the esteemed and insightful SABC legend Thami Dickson was incredible.

The workshop, during the introspection phase of the workshop saw the challenges local/community media faced. It goes without saying that the community media have financial constraints, this is worsened when them (community media) losing advertisement revenue to commercial media. To delve into that, the vital advertisement revenue is one that doesn’t come from the private sector, but from government. There was mention of a power struggle between local media and government. Government knowing that these community media are in need of funding, and using that knowing to push their agenda, sometimes often the expense of the radio station, or TVs beliefs and mission statement. The paying stakeholder had the mentality that implied, ‘I am paying so things have to go my way’.

There was a question of how to get reliable information from government departments that was reliable. While looking through the possible answers for this question, another issue that posed a threat to community media arose. There was a degree of lack of respect some government departments had towards local media practitioners.

With so many challenges these local pillars face, they stand still, looking to grow and overcome adversity. During the ECAC workshop, the question ‘what can you do to reeducate the community about HIV?’ was asked, and each sector came up with ideas. Print sector shared ideas of relocating to cyber space were plenty, with space on the actual paper restricting creativity. Radio sector spoke of starting stories that would educate and inform the community about HIV. TV spoke of having local comedians set up a comic piece which would be broadcasted.