This assessment taught me a lot of things about Mobile
Journalism (MOJO). I got an opportunity to use a gadget to report news, and
that alone made me realise that media is fast moving with trends. Over the past
two years or so, I have been closely monitoring the use of MOJO by journalist
in South Africa and in this assignment I tried to duplicate some aspect of
their reporting using this powerful gadget called Cellphone.
When Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan delivered his budget
speech on the 22nd of February, I knew that the aspect that I was going to
choose for my assignment would be about the increase in sin taxes for consumers
of Alcohol and Tobacco. High consumption of these products is a massive issue
in South Africa, especially among youth.
This assessment answers questions such as ‘despite the yearly
increase of alcohol and tobacco why do you persist in using these products.'
This question might sound a little bit silly, but the reality is, South Africa
is at a stage where more than 10 million people are unemployed, Inequality
remains a critical issue with several employees earning below the proposed
minimum wage of R3500. So the question here should be “Is it really worth it?”
This assessment was a challenge I was prepared to tackle. It
sent me to a Tavern, to get the right piece of information to add to my MOJO.
While doing this assessment I also realised that sometimes you need to get
permission from the right stakeholders of the Tavern to take footage.
The 6%-10% increase in sin taxes of these products is
expected to generate R9 Billion in an attempt to recover last year’s R30
Billion shortfall in expected tax receipts.
This assessment taught me that not everyone is always willing
to talk to you. Those who are willing sometimes come with conditions like
'record me but off the record', and that alone makes it really difficult to put
together the work. I also learnt that the ‘journalist status’ can chase people
away when you are doing a story, and the best solution in those instances is to
specify the purpose of the story.
This assessment also made me realise that people have
different views and perceptions of alcohol and tobacco, and as a journalist, I
should respect their views and use them wisely in my stories.
Most people believe that this increase is a continuation of
what began in 2002. For me, this increase is a way by the government to reduce
high consumption of alcohol and tobacco. My question here is ‘how is the
government going to make money when people begin to ditch up alcohol and tobacco
because of its high prices?’ We cannot deny that these products bring a massive
injection in the country’s economy. I truly understand that this strategy has
been effective since 2002, but what can happen if its backfires in the future.
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