Yeoville, South Afriica -

This is Yeoville. It deserves a film in itself for there was no other place like it in the South Africa I knew. At one point a good friend who was putting me up introduced me to his next door neighbour. Four years later Cheryl Carolus was the South Africa High Commissioner based in the UK. That was Yeoville for you.
Fifteen years ago I lived here as a freelance stringer. Last week I spent an hour around the place before catching a flight back to the UK. Wonder what the district 9 gang would have made of it?

When can you libell a nation? District 9

Nigeria's Information minister wants an apology. Sony has been told to the cut the offensive scenes and meanwhile the film continues to build its cash piles at the box office.

District 9, a seemingly innocuous sci-fi film by many standards, has run into a headlong confrontation between a nation, a multinational and by proxy the country where it was shot.

If you think the Nigerians are expressing undue concern, then you're failing to understand the image-discourse of cinema; how a generation of impressionables may subliminally or forthrightly agree all Nigeria's are wretched.

The norm is often to attack or situation rogue regimes as the baddies in Hollywood flicks, which is why in Lethal Weapon released just before South African turned to the light, the drug barron's were heavily accented Afrikaners. That didn't stop SA from complaining.

Otherwise you do what 24 and other films, fearing boycotts et al, do and make up a nation.

Information Minister Dora Akunyili obviously is no cinema-goer otherwise this should have been neutered when the film was still slated for release, so calling for cuts isn't going to happen.

The main Nigerian gangster's name is Obesandjo, not too far from Olusegun Obasanjo, the former Nigerian President

But can she sue Sony?

The standard answer is you can't sue a mass of people unless each can prove the hurtful actions apply to them, which is why no innocent football supporter caught between racist chants on a terrace drawing ire from a football commentator doesn't have a case.

Unless, that is the individual can prove the camera lingered on them. I was working at BBC Newsnight in the early 90s when the programme had to apologise profusely for a slip it made, libeling a group.

But could D9 set a precedent for damages? A class action organised by super lawyers in these meta data Net days, to test existing laws, can't be ruled out.

The loss of revenue from banning the film in Nigeria is small beer, more importantly is the diplomatic thunk in relations between Nigeria and South Africa.

Early success of the film suggests a sequel will follow. The film makers might want to then put things right. Meanwhile here's a critic of D9 sent to me by a South African television commissioner. Link coming soon

Photojournalism -personal stories in the 90s from conflict South Africa

At dinner last night, my two companions chastised me over viewmagazine.tv and my work.

They had my interests at heart, wanting to know why I rotated so heavily features on my site.

Reflexively the excuse is there's been a transition point viewmagazine.tv has passed which requires a re-alignment of its properties.

It started off as a magazine showcasing a project here and something there, but now is a gallery requiring a curatorial hand, essentially sign posting a-plenty to turn the light onto those shadows.

Which means all media go and more achive which is why I can now with my artist alter ego begin to unveil more from the past.

Why because it informs our future and we are poorer for not knowing and understanding those things that have moulded how we live, how we might think, how society has evolved.

Take between 1992-1994, South Africa winding up Apartheid - legalised racism - with the prospect many thought of a civil war. I was working as a freelance reporter to several outlet often reporting from the townships which were powder kegs for blood baths between the ANC and Inkatha and anyone who dare get in their way.

It was an era which took the lives of many journalists and photojournalists and possible seconds away from a good friend who had a gun cocked to his head with the hammer ready come come down.

The Banging Photographers
Yesterday I scanned across my home library and pulled out The Life and Photography of Ken Oosterbroek.

Oosterbroek, a brilliant award winning photographer was killed covering the townships nine days before South Africa's much awaited first all-race elections.

Like so many journalists et al in South Africa at the time Oosterbroek's photography cut to the quick - just magnificent. I had friends at the Star where he worked, I never met him though, but his other colleague Kevin Carter I knew very well by proxy.

Flicking through the book so many memories came flooding back. The last few frames of the book are haunting as Oosterbroek's friends capture his death, the bullet that ended his life.

I didn't know of James Natchwey's work then, but looking at the print again is the figure of a young erudite rock-star looking Natchwey - one of the members of the famous bang bang club.

In South Africa the bang bang club and other photographers were the eyes of the world.


Kevin Carter
Carter came to my attention via Lindsay my landlady who was the editor of a highly successful magazine called Living and commissioned Kevin on many occasions. Like most commissioning editors she also had a good ear.

In the evenings after dinner the phone would go and she'd disappear for hours. When she arrived she would recount, looking sullen. the state of Carter. I'd listen transfixed.

Carter had shot a picture of which would bring him the ultimate in photographer a Pulitzer. It featured an emaciated young black girl being stalked by a vulture.

Lindsay relayed how Carter came to take the pic. He had the girl in sight, then noticed a haze across the lens, when he pulled back he could see a vulture which would shuffle up to the little girl when she fell. waiting for her last breath.

Carter shooed the vulture away, but as Lindsay told me, he could not be sure when he left, not being able to help the girl, that the scavenger bird would not return. It haunted him. The stream of enquiries from readers compounded it. The prize was too much to bear.

On 27 July 1994, Carter took his own life by running a pipe from his exhaust into his car. He was 33 years old.

For the two years when I returned from South Africa to become a videojournalist, that picture sat flush on my desk.

Yesterday I reached for a file I had digitised a while back, South Africa circa 1992 and a series of flashes and thoughts simply tumbled out.

My appreciation for the work I do, and it is something to be appreciated dearly stems from seeing the likes of the works of the Oosterbroek and Carter and in case you've little context to give you an idea of South Africa here's one of many, many radio reports I made .

The Big Videojournalism pieces - Successor Generation

Showing on Viewmagazine.tv, one of the videojournalism features made for Network Television, Channel 4 News. South Africa's recent general election provides the currency to look at this feature.

Channel 4 News, could not afford to send a reporter to South Africa, so I explained what I had in mind and paid my way to South Africa, without any gear.

I had about a week to put this together from a standing start. Finding good subjects had its moments. The piece was about the Successor Generation, Young black South Africans- future architects, now custodians of South Africa and the new schism seeping into society.


Gayle had already featured in my BBC radio 4 40 minute documentary. An extraordinary powerful woman, articulate, well respected, and most definitely in my books a future minister.


Itumelang, amazing talent. Then the editor of a youth magazine, now working with some of South Africa's brokers. If you look closely you'll see the camera I'm using: the digibeta 900.

I might be a big fan of small cameras which have their place, but cameras like the Digi 900 give you a breadth of control and texture unparalleled. You'll need to have a good understanding of the camera, white balancing, lenses etc.

At the times of hiring it, the average cost for a digi-beta with the lens I'm using was about $50,000
In Cape Town, Beth, whom I worked with on one of my first features in South Africa circa 1992, Through the Eyes of a Child talks about the problems she still faces.

Bassie, couple of years earlier, she'd been crowned Miss South Africa, and runner up in Miss Universe. But again like all my interviewees a formidable mind. I didn't take as many clips from her as I should have, but packaged here interview later as a self contained one-on-one.

The lengthy feature Seven minutes plus is not as easy at it looks particularly if you're starting out, but my Masters students should probably rest in the knowledge that everything I'm telling them in terms of character building, and exposition plays up here.

This sort of feature could take us up two weeks when I was at the BBC on Reportage with a team. Today, as a videojournalist this should be anything from a day or more depending on the set up.

I'm currently writing a book about my time working across as many broadcast networks and how some of this stuff works. I'll keep you posted :) Drop me a line if you're interested in learning about training programmes.

Radio journalism -South Africa

You hear less and less of the term Radio Journalism nowadays.

During my postgrad we spoke of nothing else. TV was for those flash lot, but radio was real journalism.

Has that changed much???

Anyhow, I'll be posting the doc First Time Voters which I made for BBC Radio 4 during South Africa's transition.

On hearing it for the first time in ages ( 10 years) I think it stands up pretty well, and in some way you can spot the influences in Videojournalism.

The premise was simple. I'd found a couple of alpha males/females in SA whom I thought would make great interviews. Back in London, I wrote an article for the BBC's internal magazine, Ariel.

A BBC producer ran with the idea and we got the commission - a programme I'd probabaly put in my own top ten of personal favourites for many reasons, not least it was also aired by the SABC - South Africa's pubic radio - on the eve of the election.

Like many many people I too believe that radio is a much more powerful and immediate medium than its sibling TV/video.

I go to bed with the world service and awake to Today.

Video [podcasts] may get all the attention at the moment, but getting to grips with the mechanics of radio packaging can go some way in influencing the VJism.

My evidence, after the BBC Radio 4 I had a welter of ideas how to produce VJ pieces- such as this one -and this here

Viewmagazine looks back at South Africa

A couple of features that may inform you of South Africa. There have been great changes. This site and film gives you some background from my days reporting from the region.

Successor Generation - Videojournalism's 7up

David shooting with a Digi700 camera for a Channel 4 News feature from South Africa

It is an incredible feeling as a journalist, sociologist, or an interested party to see change within a nation take shape before you.

The Civil Rights Movement of the US, Glastnost and Perestroika in Eastern Europe, Thatcherism and the politics of self - these provided genuine reflections of our changing attitudes.

Often documenting them yields first time rough drafts; a snap shot of history by the hand of the achitect.

Nonetheless they are visual documents for new generations to ponder.

Truth, I don't by any stretch think so grandiosely about this work or others.

But watching this film - a version of which was made for Channel 4 News - is a strong advocacy for videojournalism and  why we must persevere to tell non ageneda stoies.

The Successor Generation
In 1999 working as a freelance producer at Channel 4 News, I learnt the programme had no plans of reporting South Africa, five years on from its historical elections.

The most would be a short report from the studio.

So I did what many others I feel would do with 18 months prior experience reporting from the region in 1994.

In that year BBC Radio 4 commissioned me to make a documentary following the lives of four South Africans.

They were about to vote in their first election.

That documentary proved a huge success, which is why I went back and shot this piece.

There's lots today I would have done differently. That's progress.

But what they have to say here is still relevant today as it was back then.

The Politicised Generation

Take four dynamic South Africans who would vote in their first election circa 1994. Observe them for four months talking to them, recording them. That was the basis of a BBC Radio 4 Doc called First Time Voters. It turned out to be a huge success.

When it played on Radio 4, the World Service heard it and aired it on their network, then the SABC heard it and played it on the eve of the 94 historic elections.

Believe me, it's a good thing radio allows for anonymity because geez they trailed that programme. I still get picked up for it, particularly amongst radio enthusiasts, when I'm in SA.

But that's not why I write

Five years later go back. Find out what's chnaged, this time as a VJ piece. That's the feature that played on Channel 4 which I can now show on the web.

Some time soon I hope to go back to SA to see how they're all doing and pick up some new material. I should have gone back in 2004, but alas. . .

What would be a step forward is to share the programme with other online outlets where greater social networking can be estsbalished and costs can be covered and some.

This is more or less a variation on a theme of 7up. They are the sussed generation. Coming up in a couple of days. Meantime here's the site: Reporting South Africa I created- which will soon run the radio and tv documentary