Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Pay someone who can write Mail and Guardian

So you'd think that people that can actually do some research should be writing for the Mail & Guardian right?

Write.

Wrong. Incorrect. Fail. Picked up this online today: http://mg.co.za/article/2011-09-30-different-storylines-help-students-face-ethical-dilemmas/ ... and was particularly interested because storytelling is an incredibly powerful thing in the lives of children and adults - it's one of the reasons media production is such a critical thing to get right. It's also a reason why funding/commissions should be channelled to those who are getting it right (like http://clockworkzoo.com/ ... http://twitter.com/#!/laurenbeukes).

My point is highlighted by the fact that the Mail & Guardian has chosen to publish this average piece of he said she said, instead of taking the opportunity to publish a quality, polished, insightful, researched journalism slash opinion (as we're used to the M&G doing) ... that could offer people insight on what's going on in their country/world ... their own kid's lives (i.e., why aren't they paying me to write?).

Kids need alternative stories to give them options - to allow them to make choices that haven't been made before. We allow our children (by not providing them with locally-produced quality content [including fiction]) to grow up thinking that what they see happening everyday in the stories they're exposed to (television/news/school textbooks/parents' ways of doing things), is how things simply are. If we keep allowing our children to understand the world this way, we will always end up with the world this way (xenophobic, racist, elitist, … and full of hurt).

How do we give them alternatives? We give them choices: we speak with them, we give them opinions and make sure they know that these are opinions. In the light of the ‘article’ in the M&G referred to above, we give our teachers access to information and the stories themselves. We fund television that addresses the daily realities of our children. We create television that shows them themselves, and not Australian, American, Japanese and French stereotypes of what boys and girls should be.

Anyway … you don’t have to pay me I’ve already written this article for free …

3 comments:

Phoenix Steel said...

So, just to clarify, is your argument about how poorly the article is written or is it about the content of the article?

Tesscat said...

The (lack of) content. It's not particularly smashingly written - but it's about the missed opportunity.

Hitz said...

No.