Men Vuvuzela’s source of knowledge

by Brendan Roane | Sep 30, 2011 | News

Men were favoured over women as sources of news in Vuvuzela this year, following a national and global trend.
The informal research process involved looking through the news stories of Vuvuzela from March 4 to September 23. It includes the first three pages of 18 editions as well as the deep captions on pictures.

In total, there were 141 articles and 359 sources, of which 24 were unnamed. Each source was categorised into gender and race and whether they were an expert on the issue or not. Men appear to have been favoured as news informants as they account for 56% of sources, while women account for 37%. Unnamed sources are responsible for the remaining percentage.

Research manager at Media Monitoring Africa (MMA), Wellington Radu, believes Vuvuzela has represented more women this year than the global average. He says the 2010 Global Media Monitoring Project shows female voices and opinions stand at 23% of global sources. Male experts were also quoted twice as often as their female counterparts.

“Women are sometimes reluctant to speak publicly for reasons ranging from lack of confidence to a lack of trust or experience with the media,” said Radu. However, he said, it is debatable whether this is true at Wits because of a higher education level of women as opposed to the national average. Students could qualify as experts if they had a skill in the subject of the article and eyewitnesses were also counted in this category. Experts in general were also preferred overall as 169 were quoted, against 122 students.

Radu said he was disappointed that more experts were spoken to as students outnumber lecturers and heads of departments. However, the fact that students were sometimes counted as experts on a topic could skew this result. Black students were quoted significantly higher than other students at 87 out of 122, with the next closest group, white students, standing at 20.

Witsie global health leader

by Brendan Roane | Sep 23, 2011 | News

A budget of over R11billion rand a year will become the
responsibility of a former Wits student.

Dr Trevor Mundel has been announced as president of the
global health programme for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Mundel graduated from Wits with a BSc, BSc honours and a
medical degree. He was also a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford and
has a PhD in mathematics from the University of Chicago.

The Gates Foundation, co-chaired by Bill Gates and his wife
Melinda, is a global charity organisation which focuses largely on health and
education. It provides funding to programmes such as research into new vaccines
and scholarships for students who come from poverty.

Mundel’s appointment was announced on September 13 and he
will take up his new position on December 1.

Prof Helen Laburn, deputy vice chancellor of research at
Wits, said Mundel’s appointment was an indication that Wits’s medical and other
health sciences degrees “set them up for really important, responsible and
influential positions on the global stage”.

Laburn said she remembers him as “a quiet, unassuming but
very bright student”.

The global health programme funds advances in science and
technology to save lives in developing countries. It  aims to improve medical technology and supplies
at an affordable cost to these regions and  focuses on the prevention and treatment of HIV
and Aids and malaria, among others.

As president of the programme Mundel will oversee a yearly
budget of over R11.4-billion. To date, the health programme alone has awarded
about R111.7-billion in grants worldwide, over half of the total grants the
foundation has given.

‘Secrecy Bill’under the spotlight

by Brendan Roane | Sep 23, 2011 | News

Opponents of the Secrecy Bill believe its delay signifies a division within the ANC over its contents – a claim which the party denies.

The proposal, also known as the Protection of Information Bill, would give the minister of State Security the power to classify government information. Unauthorised people found in possession of such information could then be prosecuted and face jail terms. This would include journalists and whistleblowers.

The Bill was supposed to be voted on in Parliament on Tuesday 20. It is now in the hands of the National Assembly and not the ad hoc committee.

Right2Know campaigner Dale McKinley said the delay shows “dissension within the ANC itself [over the Bill]”.

The ANC have denied this and said the reason for the delay is to allow further consultation on the Bill. Motshekga believes the Bill will be approved before the end of the year.

The Right2Know Campaign held a night vigil on Monday night in opposition to the proposal. Organiser for the group’s Gauteng campaign, Siphiwe Segodi, said if the bill were passed in its current form it would mean the “death of [our] democracy”.

About 120 people attended the vigil on Constitution Hill and spoke out about how the Bill would affect them.

Segodi said he was not confident the Bill would be dropped or radically changed because of the ANC’s majority in Parliament.

Lyndall Shope-Mafole, Congress of the People leader in the Gauteng legislature, said:

“When I was still part of the ANC, we talked about this threat, while we were in Polokwane. This is exactly what we meant in 2008 and that is what is happening now. We should not be silenced.”

Opposition groups claim the Bill will allow the government to hide corruption and mismanagement.

“There is no reason whatsoever, limited as our current freedom is, that we should give it away in inches again like this,” said a member of the Media Organisation of South Africa.

New views on Somali crisis

by Brendan Roane | Aug 26, 2011 | News

“I SAW a father going to bury his daughter, who was wrapped in a blanket, while women carried shopping and kids went to school”, described an SABC journalist about how middle and upper classes in Mogadishu remain mostly unaffected by the famine.

Vauldi Carelse, who was in Mogadishu for 10 days doing a report for the SABC programme, Special Assignment, said her piece did not do the famine in Somalia justice.

However, despite “a new tragedy unfold[ing] every day” she said there are many families in Mogadishu who live relatively normal lives and still have access to fresh vegetables.

Carelse was speaking at the Women in conflict: Focus on Somalia debate, which is part of the Phenomenal Women series at Wits.

Dr Fahmeeda Moosajee volunteered her medical services in Mogadishu as part of the Gift of the Givers, a South African disaster relief organisation. She said they were the first support the country had received from Africa.

“Maybe if we haven’t heard [of other relief organisations] it is because it hasn’t been broadcast or organisations have done [their relief] quietly?” asked Professor Veronique Tadjo, head of French studies at Wits, in her capacity as moderator of the debate.

Carelse disagreed and said relief organisations such as Doctors Without Borders were driven out of the country by groups such as Al-Shabaab, an Islamic militant group.

Most of the Somali refugees in South Africa are here legally, having declared themselves at the border according to Zaheera Jinnah from the African centre for migration and society at Wits.

Sowdo Hussein Mohamud, a Somali journalist, said she came to South Africa two years ago because of a lack of education and job opportunities in her native country.

She said it takes three months for Somali refugees to reach South Africa because they have to cross several borders and many get arrested, injured or killed along the way.

Hussein Mohamud said while she was walking in Johannesburg, a small child came up to her and said, “I know what’s happening in your country” and gave her 50 cents to help.