A dehavilland dash-just one of the nine planes we took

I now have my feet back on English soil having spent the last month out of the country exploring parts of Africa.

I realise I have neglected my blog for some time now what with exams, the end of my course and then working to pay for my trip.

I wanted to write a travel blog while I was away but simply did not have the time so now I’m back, here is a summary of thoughts on South Africa, Morocco and Egypt.

South Africa was our first stop (when I say our I mean my boyfriend and I) where we stayed for a week with my aunt and uncle who have lived in an industrial town called Empangeni for the last three years.

Staying with people who have settled there gave me a good understanding of how things work out there. Both my aunt and uncle work in the medical profession and sadly as in so many countries, there is not always enough equipment or enough money to go around. It makes me very grateful for the NHS, despite all its failings.

One thing which struck me almost immediately about South Africa was that none of the labourers or people doing the less well paid jobs were white. As we drove from the airport on our arrival, all the workers at the side of the road were black. All of the people trying to hitch a lift home at the end of the day were black. I know this is probably because they make up the majority of the population- only around 9% of the population is white, despite the fact that the only South Africans I had met before my trip were white- however, I felt quite guilty for being white and therefore privileged in a country where until so recently we oppressed its natives.  

The Cape of Good Hope

Umhlanga (next to Durban) and Cape Town had quite different feels. Being tourist destinations they seemed more polished, with more money. The walk from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Point  was spectacular but on the drive there we passed shanty towns where black people had moved during apartheid when they were driven from their homes.

Mandela's cell

Visiting Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned drove it home even further, that this is a country with a very recent troubled history.

But the message was one of hope, people have moved on. The guides on the island were former prisoners who seemed to have left any bitterness behind them.

South Africa is a beautiful country and all the people we met were lovely. It is a country which still experiences problems with violence but I felt like it was moving on and wanting to leave all these problems in the past.

Next stop was 24 hours in Dubai on the way to Morocco. I had much the same opinion as many on this city. It is worth going to have a look, but I would not want to stay there. It is essentially a big building site and a souless place.

Kasbah in the desert

On to Morocco and we caught the tail end of a heatwave. Apparently it had got up to 55 degrees, I have never felt anything like it.

I think what struck me most about this country was the desert areas. We spent three nights in the Sahara and, perhaps naively, I was shocked at the fact that people actually live in the middle of the desert.

We visited a farm while on a camel ride and although the accommodation was basic they had electricity and running water. They even had a satellite dish meaning they probably had more channels than I have in north London- we haven’t progressed beyond 5 in my house. I also had full phone reception, something which I couldn’t get in Knightsbridge this weekend.

One of the sadder things about the country (and it was the same in Egypt) was the number of children trying to sell us stuff. They are forced to work from an early age and don’t seem to have much of a childhood. Although education has been made compulsory in recent years I wondered who was going to keep track of these families living in the middle of nowhere.

Pyramid and Sphinx at Giza

Egypt, although just five hours flight from Morocco, has a very different feel. For a start the Nile means that it is greener.

Marrakech seemed to retain some authenticity. Apart from the cars and some modern buildings, you get the feeling it has not changed for centuries. I think Casablanca and Rabat may be more commercial but we did not have a chance to visit them. Whereas Cairo has well and truly entered the 21st century. Well, as much as a third world country can.

If you think traffic in London is bad, go to Cairo. The rules of the road are there are none. They pay 200% tax when buying a car so the roads are full of old bangers and no one minds if they take a knock. And in Cairo if you have a horn, use it every 30 seconds just to make sure it works.

Although predominantly Muslim, Egypt is more relaxed than Dubai and Morocco. Women cover up but often in jeans, long sleeved t-shirts and a headscarf. In Egypt the law dictates that you must practise a religion so 95% of the population are Muslim and 5% are Christian.

Cairo was too busy for my liking. Luxor and Aswan were less crazy and the Nile outside Cairo is much more beautiful. In Cairo it looks just like the Thames but outside it has greenery growing along the banks.

Coastline at Dahab

We took a trip to Dahab by the Red Sea, which was my favourite part of Egypt. It has a vey bohemian feel, is very laid back and the coast line and coral reefs are gorgeous.

I arrived back in London three days ago. It feels strange that I am so out of touch with everything. We picked up one copy of the Mirror for £2 while out there and one guy tried to sell us a two day old copy of The Times for £4. Apart from the occasional glimpse at Sky News or BBC World, I have no idea what has been going on, a weird feeling for a journalism graduate.

I am glad to be back where there is some organisation. Where trains have a timetable and most of the time they stick to it and where asking for a taxi does not involve six taxi drivers suddenly appearing from nowhere and arguing in Arabic. Now it’s on with the job hunt, wish me luck.

The European Commission

Yesterday I went to a talk entitled “Demystifying the EU”, given by Alison Rose who works at the Foreign Office. I know I will have already lost half of you. “European Union? Yawn!” That is what a lot of people think.

That was the problem that we all came up against as soon as questions were opened to the floor. The main consensus was no one in Britain understands the EU, no one likes it and a lot of people will not vote in the European elections because they don’t believe it has any bearing on their lives.

The answer from one of the journalism tutors was that as journalists it is or job to tell people to vote. Well, I don’t think it is. It is the job of the Government, the European Parliament, the Electoral Commission and other such bodies to publicise the elections and the reporters’ job is to report it.

Ms Rose explained that in Spain the state is viewed positively, it protects the

European Parliament

people. Not so here, just look at the expenses debacle. It would take some time to change that view in Britain but what can be done now is to educate people about how decisions made in Brussels affect our daily lives.

There are TV and radio adverts and posters on the tube (and probably elsewhere outside of London). But they only tell you to vote, not why or who is standing, or what the EU is in the first place. In fact the only really convincing arguments I have heard for voting is so that the BNP doesn’t win seats.

I went onto Google yesterday and started searching for information on the elections and who the candidates are. It was only after clicking through several pages that I came across a list. It should not be like this. We are fortunate in this country and in the other EU countries to have a democracy, so why is it so difficult to access information about it? And why is it so difficult to get people active in it?

I now sound like I’m an EU campaigner but it annoys me how complacent we are about voting. What I think we really need is to educate school children about government and politics, I was never taught anything about how the political system works and I wish I had been.

Pictures: European Commission by Stuart Chalmers from Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/gertcha/

European Parliament by Xaf from Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/xaf/

G20 protestors gathered in London

As the G20 protests in the City gathered pace today, I like many others, turned to Twitter to keep updated.

It is at times like this when I fear that newspapers in their print form really are redundant. Who wants to find out the news tomorrow morning when they can watch the action unfold via the many 24 hour news mediums available?

Twitter has revolutionised the way in which news is dispersed. Journalists and citizen journalists alike no longer have to wait to file their copy by email, phone or when they get back to the office. They do not even have to switch on a camera and do a report. They can give minute by minute accounts from the scene.

Of course this means a completely different type of news report. Facts may become sketchy and grammar may go out the window as events are reported quickly and often from the centre of the action.

This is not the first time Twitter has become a source of breaking news, during the Mumbai attacks in November 2008, Twitter updates kept the world updated from inside the Taj Mahal Palace hotel.

This is presents an exciting opportunity for journalism and I hope it may get reporters, who are now often confined to the newsrooms, back out where the news is happening.

Picture: from felixthehat on Flickr

Tim Campbell and other members of The Bright Ideas Trust

I started this week with much intrepidation, I have limited knowledge about business, especially Hackney specific business.

My week as business editor for the Hackney Post started well. The business section is only a page long and I had one other person in my team and a good lead story.

I spoke to Tim Campbell of The Apprentice for a feature, as well as a young entrepreneur which his company had helped and his marketing manager. They were all really helpful and gave me some great material for my story.

However, things quickly went downhill. I was left to do the business section on my own after my business reporter was poached by the news section. Then the second story for the page fell through and other ideas were discussed and dismissed.

Then Daniel came to the rescue with another story. But our editor for the week, Beth, wanted Dan’s story for the news pages. We had a discussion about it and the deal was that I could use the story for the business page if I helped out with news.

Then at about 4pm, after talking to one of the tutors, Beth said the story was going to be used on the news pages after all so I had to find another story.

I had heard a report on radio four about workers taking different types of jobs because of the recession and how low paid jobs, which were previously done by foreign workers, were now being taken by British workers. I thought it could easily be given a Hackney focus.

I had a lot of trouble getting the story together, try getting quotes at 5pm as everyone is leaving their office, it is not an easy task.

Thankfully, I managed to pull together the section in time for the deadline but not without my fair share of stress.

Tony Grisoni

Somehow in the slight chaos that was the business section, I managed to do an interview with Tony Grisoni, screen writer of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It was interesting to speak to the man behind one of the most rented movies of all time.

This week has been a bit fraught. Tempers became a bit frayed as tiredness kicked in and as the end of the week approached, people started to lose motivation.

Although it all came together in the end, the lesson learnt from this week was to have a plan b and c and so on.

Production is now over and it seems quite sad to no longer be getting stories for the Hackney Post, its back to writing essays instead.

Tim Campbell won The Apprentice in 2005

It’s that time of year again; I am getting swept up in the fever surrounding The Apprentice.

I sat down to watch the new series on Wednesday night and it lived up to expectations. There were already arguments and bitchy comments being thrown around. I am not usually a fan of reality TV but something about the show has me hooked.

So I was rather excited when I got to speak to Tim Campbell- first winner of a place in Sir Alan Sugar’s company- as part of my role as business editor of The Hackney Post this week.

I spoke to him about The Bright Ideas Trust, a company he has set up to help young entrepreneurs. The scheme is working in partnership with Hackney council to encourage business-minded people to start their own companies.

Tim and two of his colleagues assured me that now is a good time to set up a business.

This defies all my instincts about setting up a business during a recession but I could see their point. There are opportunities out there because there are gaps in the market left by businesses closing.

Consumers are wary of spending, before they may have stretched their budgets, but now they are cutting back. New businesses can offer quality services for cheaper prices than their more established rivals. And as Tim said, if they can make it through the recession things will seem a lot easier afterwards.

In other Hackney Post business news, jobseekers are now looking to other, perhaps more unusual fields to find work. The BBC reported last night that McDonalds is opening up new job opportunities for the long-term unemployed.

This trend is being echoed in the borough and it reflects what some people have been saying for a while; that there are jobs out there but people need to expand their searches.

Perhaps this is the difference between those who succeed in business and those who don’t. People with the drive to do well able to see beyond what is in front of them and- to use the cliché – think outside the box. And this is probably what Sir Alan will be looking for from his next apprentice.

Newspaper stand from laffy4k on Flickr

The Government has bailed out the banks and is working on a package for the motor industry, so what next? Some people have suggested newspapers should also receive a lump sum from Alastair Darling’s pot.

This idea was rejected by the Business Secretary Peter Mandelson earlier this month.

The Press Gazette reported that he said:

“I don’t think that government subsidies are the right way forward.

“But where we can help in maintaining public sector advertising and applying cross media competition rules, we should certainly consider doing so.”

At the time I thought “why shouldn’t the Government help out the struggling industry?” I, like many others, do not want to see it go under. And I’m sure this sentiment is not just echoed by those in the industry. Other people will also be sorry to see some titles disappearing.

But I was reading this article by Charlie Beckett - which I was directed to through Twitter- in which he discusses John Nicol and Robert McChesney’s argument that the US government should bail out their media and I started to think about the idea.

As I have already stated, other industries have been helped out by the Government, why shouldn’t newspapers? We always hear of the public interest argument when papers print something controversial and they do (if not always) serve the public.

The media is the fourth estate, playing a very valuable role in society and although it doesn’t always write what the Government wants, it also provides a lot of publicity for the Government. After all, if journalists didn’t write about new Government policies and decisions and papers didn’t publish them, who would?

But the problem is that were the press to accept a handout, then they could not really be said to be a “free” press, something which was fought so hard for years ago. If the press accepted money from central Government then it would have a loyalty to the Government which would affect its ability to hold them to account.

The only problem now is where the struggling newspapers will get a much needed boost from.

Thankfully it was back up and running fairly quickly.

For the rest of the week I have been juggling doing some news stories and getting content online.

On Monday I made my first podcast a run down of the news from last week and a taster of things to come. I got my first taste of editing a podcast which proved to be harder than I thought as I could not get the delete option to work so it went into the capable hands of Shona to complete.

Hackney podcast

Tuesday was news day and I spent the day with my phone stuck to my ear trying desperately to get comments for stories, the efforts finally paid off.

The end of the week has involved putting content online, editing pictures and geo mapping. As well as chasing the rest of the team for content, pictures, locations for geo mapping and checking with tutors for legal problems in stories.

It all got a bit complicated in the end, they say too many cooks spoil the broth and I can vouch for that this week. We had misunderstanding about which folders final copy was kept in and who it had been checked by before it went online.

Unfortunately a couple of stories went up which were legally a bit dodgy. I can take partial responsibility for that but a break down in communication was mostly to blame. Despite the glitches we have managed to produce a good paper and website.

Next week I am business editor, something which I am a bit nervous about as business news is not my strong point. We have some good ideas and hopefully we can turn some of them into good stories.

My role for this week was in the features department so on Thursday last week I rolled up for a features meeting to discuss ideas and start things moving.

At first, things didn’t seem to be getting off the ground, a couple of hour’s research on Friday for one feature and an afternoon walking the streets of Hackney on Monday for another bore no fruit.

On Sunday, I spent the morning doing a walking tour of Shoreditch and Hoxton as part of the East Festival. Fascinating stuff but the video was unusable due to traffic noise and it was not possible to take stills from the footage.

The afternoon was more productive, I went to the Geffrye Museum with Ben to film kids in a craft workshop, watch a play and speak to some people.

Tuesday was the most exciting day this week. I went with Beth to get some footage and interviews from the site of the original Shakespeare theatre in Shoreditch for a feature on Shakespeare in the borough.

I returned to university feeling very excited, I was one of just 50 people who got to see the site before it was closed up and the planning permission is finalised. We took video of archaeologist Heather Knight from the Museum of London and did an on location to camera piece. But technical problems hit and the video could not be downloaded.

Wednesday was a frustrating day. I made about 30 calls to academics- I don’t even want to think about my phone bill- all of whom were out/not answering their phone/ unable to help/ on maternity leave. I also tried desperately to find some photos to replace the lost footage from the previous day.

In the evening Ben and I went to a hidden gem in the backstreets of Dalston in Hackney. Passing Clouds is unlike anywhere I have been before, an eclectic mix of decorations, sari fabric hanging from the walls upstairs, Arabic style writing on the walls downstairs and a collection of dolls and puppets dotted around were just some of the things on display.

I learned to play the African drum with Adesose Wallace. It was like going back to school, as I lost the rhythm he would get progressively frustrated but when we all played in time his face lit up with pride. Hopefully the feature and video will go in next week’s edition.

Thursday was deadline day and as expected, things became a bit manic. Arguments were had about page layout, copy which was cut and pictures were changed. But overall we pulled together and are proud of our efforts.

He spoke to us about the use of social networking and how to exploit it for journalistic purposes.

He asked his twitter followers for a brief summary of social media and Howard Rheingold described it as:

 ”Many to many media that gain value as more people participate, and which enabled people to connect with each other.”

I like this definition and it is an interesting idea. However, after the lecture a fellow student asked whether there is a danger that we are making ourselves too open on the internet and our lives are becoming up for grabs for anyone who wishes to follow us. That got me thinking, I am on facebook, twitter, have a blog, to name some of the places where someone can follow my online presence.

I don’t openly share details of my private life- not that I think anyone would be that interested- but I have been thinking about where we draw the line, how much social networking is too much? If  journalists (and other professionals) are making their lives open and available, does this add or subtract to what we have to say when reporting? On one hand, it dispells the image of the hardened hack but on the other, if people read what we ate for breakfast or what film we watched last night does it challenge our authority on the real subjects? Do people become so bored of hearing our opinions that they switch off when we actually have something of value to impart to them?

I like social media, I want to see it grow and I think it has great potential to be used as a tool for journalism but I do think we should address the questions I have posed.

The first part of this was a news conference with an animal technician and a scientist, fine. The second part was visiting an animal testing facility, not so fine. I decided to go because I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone. Plus how can I write a balanced piece if I have not witnessed it for myself?

The facilities were clean, clinical. The animals seemed happy enough, they had reasonably big cages, were given plenty to eat and were petted and looked after by the technicians. But then I had a closer look, the marmosets were trembling, their movements slightly jerky. Not surprising really, they had been given a dose of Parkinson’s disease.

I came out of the labs feeling a sense of guilt that I was walking out of there, while the animals would not. Is this fair? That is the long running debate which has occupied both sides of the argument for years.

While animal testing does go on in the UK I am glad it is heavily regulated and the animals are cared for by the technicians. Or so I thought. Then we had a presentation from the other side of the argument and saw what we had not seen at the facilities, the experiments being carried out. I watched with some degree of discomfort.

I cannot make out which parts of this are reality and which are carefully considered ploys to get us to believe one side of the argument or the other. Images such as the one I have used here are designed to pull at our consciences. But is it reality?

So now I have to write a news feature and I’m struggling to write with the images of the animals in my head. But I guess this is what I signed up to, unlike the animals.