SABC 2 seTSWANA NEWS 27/11/2018

ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION
Name of monitor: Your name Madikana Matjila
Name of Television station: Channel where you are getting the story SABC 2
Name of programme: Name of News programme Setswana/Sepedi news
Date of broadcast: Date when the news item was broadcast 27 November 2018
Story number in the bulletin 6
Time: Time of broadcast 20H00 – 20H30
Genre: Type of news
News
Feature
Analysis and commentary
Mixed NEWS
Theme: Which topic category is this? List all the topics that relate to this story Crime and violence
Murder
Safety and security

Skills: This description refers to the main journalistic skill that is highlighted in the story that could be either positive or negative.
Accuracy
Captions
Ethics
Events vs Issues Fairness
Hard News vs Soft news
Headlines
Language
Perspective
Portrayal
Sources
Use of data Portrayal
perspective

GBV focus explicit or implicit? Please ensure that the examples you chose either explicitly or implicitly concern GBV Implicit
Gem Classification: Gender and Media Classification
Gender Aware
Gender Blind
Subtle stereotypes
Blatant stereotypes Blatant
Provide a link: Link to where this story can be accessed
If no link provide the artefact upload on drobox

Brief description of news story:
This story follows a series of crime and political killings in Limpopo in connection with the VBS mutual bank. A number South African municipalities have invested money in the bank which was declared bankrupt. A number of whistle blowers are killed and victimised. A Limpopo municipal worker as the latest victim.

Context
This is a story of a murder of a policeman. The reporter blatantly used visual to paint a picture which does not align well with the story.

Why it has been given this GEM classification:
• Portrays women and children as emotional weak
• Promote toxic masculinities
• The story lacks sources and gender sensitivity

Analysis:
Women and children are typically portrayed as victims, emotional weak and vulnerable. This report is an example of blatant stereotype on women and children. This scene portrays women and children breaking down and crying, men showing less/no emotions and speaking out boldly on tragedies. The story shows a teary wife of the victims and his son. They are both not interviewed or spoken about in the story, however their visual used to show the weakness in women and children while painting a picture of brave men who are not shaken by reported incident. This story shows a man who is an eyewitness and survivor of the fatal shooting speaking boldly and shows no emotion (fright, crying etc.). This is typical of popular stereotype where men are portrayed as brave and sound. This is someone who has experienced a shooting and lost a close friend but he is depicted as unshaken. This is an example of toxic masculinities. Men don’t cry.

The reporter did get a view from the police and the municipality on record. His use of the visuals of the family members crying (woman and Children) could be argued for a portrayal of how hurt the family is. This however does make it right. In the case of the police, the reporter only mentions that they are investigating, there no visual used, the same also for the municipality. The blatant part is that the family just like the police and the municipality, made comments off record, but the reporter still used a visual to create a story.

Language. The language used in this story and tone does not necessary align with visual. This is a story about a fatal shooting. Although there is not any use of gender bias language, there seems to be a misplaced emphasis on the woman and child emotion that of the story itself.

Visuals
The story shows a number of people. The issue with the visual is the depiction of children breaking down and woman weeping. This two visual in my view are misplaced and perpetuate a stereotype. The camera man also used a popular camera stunt that zooms in the faces of the people who are crying.

Angles and perspective.
The story was about crime and covered that issues partially, there was no view from the police, and there was also a confusion about the angle of the story. The reporter highlights the VBS issue and political killings.

Conclusion:
The over exaggerated emotions of victims in the news seems to be the selling point of many news visuals. Journalist continuously use women and children to portray emotions in tragedies and always zoon in when the victim cries during the interviews. The same images are now also being used to create a mood for stories event though they are irrelevant. The reporter should have applied the same logic he applied when he dealt with the police and municipality views in story.