Journalists and media professionals speak of the loss of an uncaptured, polyvocal journalism history in South Africa (Jaffer, 2015; Vollenhoven, 2014).

 

They are turning their attention to the need to reclaim and recover a historical knowledge of journalism, so that this can form a resource for strengthening the establishment of an intrinsically South African tradition of journalism (Vollenhoven, 2014; Jaffer, 2005).

 

Zubeida Jaffer, student in the journalism department in the late 1970’s, anti-apartheid activist, journalist and author, explains her similar initiative of recording history through her intiative The Journalist. “We cannot blame young journalists for not knowing the historical context. They are not getting it at the universities nor are they getting it in the newsrooms. We have to create a knowledge bank that records institutional memory,” (Vollenhaven, 2014). Her call and approach addresses the historical context of journalism in order to address the gaps and distortions for young journalists understanding the legacy of South Africa and the role of the profession needing to critically move away from the colonial backwater of the history of the profession towards a South African point of view. In a collection of articles from the African Sociological Review in light of a Critical Tradition Colloquium held in 2004 as part of the centenary celebrations of Rhodes University, Jaffer (2005: 181 - 182) explains:

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This does not pretend to be a scholarly and thorough record of that time... The students who were here at that time should be tracked down and interviewed... The relevant authorities should be interviewed as well... This process may be just what the university needs to truly diversity. For as long as it does not acknowledge how very different the experiences of so many of us were, for so long will it continue to believe that it can continue to assimilate those who come to Rhodes today into the dominant culture. Rhodes is a very different place today. Yet how different is it? 

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This is a provocation for this project as there exists a need then for a critical and multivoice history of the Journalism Department. This project (production) intends to trace and record the multiplicity and plurality within the history of the journalism department which, following the principles of journalism, have insights that must be told in further aim of intellectual duty that goes beyond machinations of institutional understanding of history towards a humanist approach, as Jaffer describes, that pieces together the fragmented individual narrative of the School of Journalism and Media Studies. In reconstructing aspects of SJMS’s past, this research will explore a participatory alternative to the conventional approach that will enable other voices and perspectives to be heard.

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In a country with so many fragmented and contested histories, a 'shared' history remains an aim and a dream. It requires the contextual knowledge that we are all shaped by a history and that we must teach this new generation of journalists to tap into the multilayered understanding of our country's history; deepening democracy and listening to each other's diverse perspectives as we rebuild in the post-colonial and post-apartheid democratic South Africa. 

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"It seems a journalist who can push all the right buttons, in other words a technically-skilled journalist, is more preferable than a thinking journalist, in other words a conceptually-skilled journalist," says Rabe (2014: 58). However, journalism curricula is being called (Jaffer, 2005; Vollenhoven, 2014; Rabe, 2014) to include modules based on cultural literacy, specifically journalism/media history, to situate future journalists in time, space and the nuances of the legacies they report on. This will facilitate a layered understanding of the past as it presents itself as the present, not through a trap of presentism, but with the ability "to think inclusively by facing inward and outward at the same time," (Rabe, 2014: 58). 

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"By including such a sub-module in curricula, it will serve as a conceptual and higher-order tool to enable journalists to report with insight on political, social, cultural and economic realities for their various audiences," (Rabe, 2014: 58). It is these audiences that must be acknowledged in the daily narratives where the effects of a colonial-apartheid past are a lived reality for many in this country. By exploring journalism/media history and South African journalism historiography we could crack open a new generation of well-prepared journalists with an obligation to question, critique and experiment, and a duty to serve the multivocality of our country where our future is rooted in our past.