“We walked a mile in their shoes and it was terrifying” read the headline on an article by our sister publication Daily Dispatch on Wednesday. The report gave an account of how pupils and journalists were robbed by an armed man at about 6:30am while walking on the R72 from Xesi village to Jojweni Zweliyandila High School.
Incidentally, the journalist and photographer were accompanying the pupils to highlight their struggles of having to walk about 10km on an unsafe stretch of road to get to school every day, when they witnessed first-hand how violent things could turn.
The team was held up at gunpoint and chased from their vehicle which was then robbed of camera equipment, a laptop, cellphones and other personal belongings.
This incident has highlighted a myriad issues that our society is confronted by.
For one, it highlighted the challenges that pupils in rural parts of the province are confronted with every day just to get to school and gain an education. Without the assistance of scholar transport, it would hardly come as a surprise if pupils drop out because the process of getting to school is too difficult.
Second, it reflected the problem of crime in our society and how vulnerable citizens are to violent attacks from gun-wielding thugs.
Third, and closer to home for those in the media industry, it underscored a growing problem of attacks on journalists in SA, which could be viewed as an attack on media freedom.
The SA National Editors' Forum (Sanef) condemned the armed robbery of the journalists, saying it not only infringed on their personal rights to work in a safe environment, but it also undermined the fabric of an open and informed society.
We agree that these type of attacks make it more difficult for the media to report extensively on the impoverished communities, particularly in the rural and peri urban areas, and what that does is it disadvantages those very communities from having their stories told.
The public must be empowered with information, but that cannot be fully achieved if journalists operate in an environment of fear.
HeraldLIVE
Attack on journalists an attack on media freedom
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Image: THEO JEPTHA
“We walked a mile in their shoes and it was terrifying” read the headline on an article by our sister publication Daily Dispatch on Wednesday. The report gave an account of how pupils and journalists were robbed by an armed man at about 6:30am while walking on the R72 from Xesi village to Jojweni Zweliyandila High School.
Incidentally, the journalist and photographer were accompanying the pupils to highlight their struggles of having to walk about 10km on an unsafe stretch of road to get to school every day, when they witnessed first-hand how violent things could turn.
The team was held up at gunpoint and chased from their vehicle which was then robbed of camera equipment, a laptop, cellphones and other personal belongings.
This incident has highlighted a myriad issues that our society is confronted by.
For one, it highlighted the challenges that pupils in rural parts of the province are confronted with every day just to get to school and gain an education. Without the assistance of scholar transport, it would hardly come as a surprise if pupils drop out because the process of getting to school is too difficult.
Second, it reflected the problem of crime in our society and how vulnerable citizens are to violent attacks from gun-wielding thugs.
Third, and closer to home for those in the media industry, it underscored a growing problem of attacks on journalists in SA, which could be viewed as an attack on media freedom.
The SA National Editors' Forum (Sanef) condemned the armed robbery of the journalists, saying it not only infringed on their personal rights to work in a safe environment, but it also undermined the fabric of an open and informed society.
We agree that these type of attacks make it more difficult for the media to report extensively on the impoverished communities, particularly in the rural and peri urban areas, and what that does is it disadvantages those very communities from having their stories told.
The public must be empowered with information, but that cannot be fully achieved if journalists operate in an environment of fear.
HeraldLIVE
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