By Augustine Minimbi
Now, the first thing is — concerning the actual tasks and everything — I learned how to transcribe and do story pitching. Before, when I was doing my freelance work for the Sunday Bulletin, I never used to pitch my stories. I just wrote the story and sent it in without much thought. I learned how to actually pitch that story so that it is newsworthy, so that it does not deviate too much from what is clearly set out for us. So we have a clear plan, that is the first thing.
The second thing I learned: Even if you’re taking stories of people who you may be somehow familiar with, you always end up learning new things. Things that they may not have told you even if you’ve been with them before, or known them for some time. You keep learning new things about them. And that’s what makes connection with people even better. Because when that happens, you not only build a connection with them, just for a long time; you might end up building a connection with them for life.
The third most important thing, especially with my mentor, Lice. She not only taught me a lot about the journalism field and what it does for people in the world, but also about life. And before then I used to have a lot of warped ideas, especially interacting with people but after that, I’ve learned a lot about treating people.
Basically what I’ve learned for this Next Generation Radio concept is that climate change is often discussed in terms which are lofty. You know, unreachable. But basically, that’s the same thing that’s done about every other policy and every other event in the world. It’s always talked about in lofty terms. No one cares too much about what the little person says because the little person is the easiest to take advantage of and to end up taking for granted. But it’s often the little person that is the building block of society.
