My year as an FJP

By Wendy N Ngcobo

I remember walking shivering with anxiety as I didn’t remember doing anything that would get me to be called in to go to the office.

“You have been chosen to be on the FJP programme “these were words by my lecturer Mrs. Sobbend when she delivered the good news to me.

Her lips carried on moving but in my mind I was thinking “after months of regretting having taken long to enter this industry, could the wait been worth it “.I was smiling but my eyes were filled with tears that because she saw me smile she was unable to see .I blew my nose not because I had a problem but because I didn’t want her to see that I was actually hiding my tears from being seen.

I was excited and nervous, at the prospect of such an opportunity, that I Wendy Nolwazi Ngcobo was about to embark on this journey, I was going to Rhodes University. I was nervous and excited at the same time I didn’t know which emotion to deal with first. I was going to Rhodes University and will be meeting new other students from  around South Africa who had the same passion as me .I was excited about my journey to autumn school that I packed a week in advance.

Mobile Phones as tools for journalism  is what  our workshop was  based on and there was nothing as heartwarming when on our last day we sat and watched a movie that I had made on YouTube .I’ve continually received positive feet back  on the story I did in the community of  Joza.

I had the amazing opportunity of being involved in the Durban International Film Festival which was an amazing networking platform form for me as an up and coming journalist. This opportunity came after one of our alumni’s Sihle Mthembu motivated us to ‘remove the mentality of being students”,” you are professionals from day one “, he said.

From that point on I have been so confident in introducing myself as ‘a journalist from Highway Africa’ that the poise I have possessed and the mentality of professionalism  has seen me  surrounded by influential people in the media ,in entertainment and in government.

Wendy ,Elethu and Akhona

Words cannot describe how I feel about the programme about the amazing initiatives it continuously   provides for young and upcoming journalist as the lessons we learn at our tertiary institutions, those alone are not enough to prepare one for the task we have at hand as advocate for people.

So to the future, FJP I wish them all of the best  they should take hold of this amazing, once in a life time opportunity.

WE GET THE MESSAGE

There we are, hitch-hiking, trying to find a way to the MONUMENT, way up the hill in RU, it is windy and freezing cold. Nokuthula and I are going to computicket to find out about the ticket sales for the Festival. You must wonder how that went. Lol...a computicket employee told us they are "NOT allowed to talk to the media" and sent us to the Festival offices. Makes you wonder: Are WE, the media taken as the 'enemy'? OR are they just NOT authorised to speak to us?

Down the monument we went, and yes we found the Fest Office. We talked to the CEO, Tony Lankester,curiously asking him about the Festival ticket sales. He politely told us they cannot give us that kind of information YET, he can only distribute it halfway through the Festival...REASON BEING: Either way the media can negatively affect the ticket sales. How? You may ask yourself. Oh well, If the ticket sales are sky rocketing and we publish that they fear the sales may drop. Again, if the ticket are not selling and we publish that, they fear that people may lose interest and consider the Fest borring and decide not to come.

Well, we guess we are going to have to wait just a little bit more to find out more about the ticket sales. Makes you really wonder thou: HOW ARE THE TICKET SALES GOING?

Keep wondering...maybe, just maybe we might get the answer for you in NO TIME at all.

By Sesethu Malgas