It is always refreshing to read “news” from a different perspective and not just the traditional reliance on “traditional” news gatherers and writers informing us about what is making the world turn or burn.

In the age of information clutter with the rapid rise of the so-called information society where anyone with a mobile phone can access hundreds and hundreds of news websites, getting stories from a “street” perspective can not only be attractive for readers seeking a shift from our prosaic and predictable political stories, but could well give fresh insights for citizen journalism theorists.

This is what kalabashmedia.com sets out to do.

In their blurb, Kalabash Media, which launches today 13 May at 1500hrs, says its work is a collaborative effort of “social media enthusiasts” who “write the news from their different perspectives,” and as we already know about Zimbabwean journalism, the polarisation that emerged in the past decade has only seen citizens frown at some news outlets.

And journalists themselves from different stables have fashioned themselves as not kindred spirits but rather virtual adversaries.

Virtual adversaries indeed, what with the polarisation being taken to cyberspace bulletin boards!

So, an initiative like kalabashmedia.com could be refreshing despite what some critics would readily say putting journalism practice in the hands of untrained practitioners and only spells disaster.

But as the blurb has it, theirs is “a group of urbanite contributors with a knack for telling their stories and reporting on events with a fresh twist. From the Streets to the Web.”

It reminds of the Rising Voices project run by Global Voices online where communities pushed to the periphery of dominant news agendas are given a chance to tell their own stories.

kalabashmedia.com could just be another cousin of the weblog where folks post their musings about virtually anything, yet the very idea that they are fashioning it as a news site only ups their relevance especially at a time when dozens of news websites on Zimbabwe can be found with some purported to be hosted by professional journalists rather reading like products of chaps who took in generous amounts of calabashes!

kalabashmedia.com promises that “You will think, you will laugh…and if not….Frowning faces make for good headlines!” and in a country where there is a lot of anger issues, kalabashmedia.com seeks to make light of these circumstances albeit in a rather “newsy” sort of way.

It could well be something that will provide space for locally relevant crowd sourced content, moreso as the country heads for another “watershed” election. We will sure need the “people’s voice.” (Pun intended!)

Demagogues get elected because their jingoism and populism is magnified by a media beholden to them, and when they assume office they proceed to dismantle the very institutions that got them elected so as to perpetuate their rule. Kunda Dixit, Jury Member of the Unesco/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize from 2000-2005. – Extracted from Pressing for Freedom – 20 Years of World Press Freedom Day*

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Mahathir (Mahomad) says we will bury you, I said, “you are 87 years old. You shouldn’t be talking about burying people. You should be thinking about your own grave.” Anwa Ibrahim, Malaysia opposition leader. – From the Financial Times, May 4, 2013*

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To expect the country (Italy) to pay its debts as it did decades ago is to expect an 85 year old man to drink the way he did at university. – Christopher Caldwell, Financial Times, May, 4, 2013*

I attended university during a period where going to school seemed like wasting one’s precious time and adding more strain on family’s financial budgets. This was the period of 2006-2010 where Zimbabwe went through a major economic downfall, the 2008 elections and the dollarisation of the currency – a very difficult period. It did appear much better for one to quit school and cross the border to a neighbouring country as they would be guaranteed of access to their needs and wants. It is during this period that corruption within the various systems in the university grew like it was growing in any other sector in the country. You could see how people would manipulate the system because of a certain commodity they held, which was in demand. You would be shocked to hear what a lecturer would do when promised a bag of maize. As the economy got better with goods and commodities available, corruption, like cancer, still existed.

Students in Kenya and Uganda have established an anonymous website, Not In My Country which seeks to expose acts of corruption within universities in these two countries. By acting as whistle blowers, students rate their lecturers’ performances and have an optional field to explain their ratings. These are crowd sourced to provide ratings. In South Africa, university students at Wits are using the university newspaper, Vuvuzela, to expose lecturers who engage in misconduct in their work through sexual harassment. Students all over have been using various media to expose corruption within their universities but these are only effective if the university’s authorities take up their responsibility by investigating matters reported. Systems run by students often fall short as university staff protect each other as investigations or follow ups on reported cases are not made.

It always been said women are better at telling their own stories, but one South African guy has defied all odds to take readers on a journey of a female university student. Please note that the identity of the writer was only revealed towards the last chapters on the blog, Diary of a Zulu Girl. I came across this blog a few weeks back and have been addicted to Thandeka the main character whom I thought was real and telling her own university experience story. Thandeka according to the writer, is making the transition, ‘from mud huts and umqombothi (African beer) to penthouses, expensive weaves and Moet”. I have only read a few of the first chapters but learning that the writer is male will not deter me from continuing with my interesting read.

I fell in love with Thandeka, not just that my best friend in primary was named Thandeka, but because in some scenes I could easily relate to her. For instance her first night of going out, not that my first night out happened as fast as hers, in the first 24 hours of her university life. But in the sense of how easily girls fall to ‘peer pressure’ in universities by the ones they trust. In the story, Thandeka had a ‘cousin’ S who was already enrolled at the university and whom her parents entrusted her to. It’s therefore easy for such people to influence whoever they have to watch over in campus be it in a good or bad way. On heir first night out, Thandeka dressed in her best clothes but according to her ‘cousin’ S the clothes were not suitable for going out….

…At 1030pm S came to my room to check if i was ready. I was wearing my hip-hop outfit (trend back home), skinnies with sneakers etc. You know the teen high school uniform for going out. We all look like lil Wayne wannabes. Looking at her i felt stupid! …She laughed and said we are not in Mooi River anymore I will have to change. I told her I did not have any such clothes and she said don’t worry i will hook you up…I had a weave on which back home we commonly call “razor” you know the one which short and is flat but curly at the back. She told me that by the end of the week this must go because here it was called “kasi weave”. She told me to rather stick to braids or my hair if i didn’t want weave. i was an eager student and dint wanna look rural so i absorbed it all…

The writer through the chapters that I have read so far, portrays real characters whom people can relate to out there. In an interview with The City Press, he says he drew his inspiration ” from years of giving advice on Facebook to his friends.” At least its not from the movies, its from real girls he interacts with no wonder he was able to portray the real life of a typical university girl. What really left me pleased with Mike and all the characters in his blog, is that his blog was entirely written on his mobile phone! The blog has been running for three weeks and ends with Chapter 51.

A comment made on the log reads: “I would like to start off by thanking you for opening our eyes as the youth. I am a 21yr old journalism student from Durban and I must say this blog really touched me. I am set to leave for JHB in the next two months and I will really be the “Zulu girl going to JHB” LOL…I feel that you have prepared me for what is to come and you have encouraged me to really take a look at myself and really check where my values stand.”

It’s shocking the kind of danger journalists continue facing across the world in their daily “routines”, and I put routines in quotes because these are people going about their normal work like any other, but which has turned out to be a perilous undertaking.

At the World Press Freedom Day celebrations this year being held in Costa Rica, one panelist literally grieved over how even countries that have promoted themselves as paragons of democracy have shown shocking impunity in their treatment of journalists.

This of course is the argument that has always been advanced by regimes that have not disguised their intolerance to press freedom that the these developed nations cannot preach to them about human rights, press freedom when they are themselves the worst violators.

It is a debate that is sure to go on for years to come, yet what has generally been agreed on during this year’s press freedom celebrations is that little is being done to ensure journalists are safe, not just embedded war correspondents as one would imagine, but the everyday journalist seeking to report anything from government corruption to organized crime.

I was jolted by one panelist who said that Pakistan remains one of the worst countries in the world to work as a journalist as journalist killings have become a daily thing despite “Pakistan being a democracy.”

Pretty instructive stuff as this resonates with many countries, some which we will not mention by name!

While other governments take journalist killings in their strides, what has emerged as worse practices is that some countries that violate these freedoms say, look, no journalist is in jail here, no journalist has been killed by state security forces, so why accuse us of being enemies of a free press, see we even have a plurality of newspapers!

As journalists celebrate this important occasion, even an African Union director of information conceded that African governments still have a lot to do to ensure journalists work in safe conditions, an acknowledgement that indeed many African countries remain hostile to a vibrate and inquisitive press.

I’ve been wondering why there have been so few reviews of HIFA’s opening show. Even the official HIFA web site is bereft of photographs, video footage or reviews – its as if it didn’t happen. Three Men On a Boat published a short piece that described the show as a catalogue of 60 years of American pop culture and that it was “OK”. On the plus side it was visually appealing. Three Men On a Boat were pleased that the opening show had been depoliticised. Meanwhile Zimbo Jam got to grips with what seems to be a central reflection: where was the story, what was the message of the opening show? But do we have to have one? Many would say yes because its a chance to tell a story, or stories of national significance; a chance to provoke conversation and draw on the experience of Zimbabweans; what are we seeing, doing, dreaming about … It seems like the HIFA organisers don’t believe that it’s possible to do this without being POLITICAL. That awful P word that will either get you into trouble, or prompt you to create art that that doesn’t fall on the side of safety. Tafadzwa Simba, the Festival spokesman said that the “arts indaba simply tried to capture the aspirations of the people, in an apolitical way, as well as to stimulate debate and dialogue.” Usually adopting a protected stand does little to stimulate meaningful debate. Nomalanga Moyo on SW Radio Africa reflected that with Workers Day falling in the middle of the Festival, and in a country with 90% unemployment, HIFA’s theme of progress and optimism could be regarded as being a little far-fetched. And maybe the bottom line: “HIFA should be more than just about singing and dancing, we can see that anywhere else. We come to HIFA because it always has that something special and different,” says Tawanda on Zimbo Jam, otherwise you can just turn on VH1.