Student, or student journalist?
Being a journalist is difficult. Being a student journalist – even more so. The line between supporting your fellow students in a cause you completely support, while remaining affiliated with your media organisation and not the mass of protesters is an incredibly fine one, for me at least. The phrase "objective journalism" is thrown at us by conservative Facebook warriors, or a racist aunt on Facebook.
On Monday night our campus saw police brutality like none other – towards students, journalists, and passersby alike. Police entered Jan Smuts residence and let off stun grenades. Police shot at fellow journalists as they had their backs turned with their hands in the air shouting that they were media. I walked with fellow students, both as a journalist and a student, waiting for the next round of bullets, waiting for the next point at which we would struggle to breathe through the tear gas.
Regardless of my condemnation of destruction of property, I stand by the students who I have seen week after week protesting. Standing at the intersection of South Street and Prince Alfred Street keeping an eye on where the students and police were, I was caught between a row of police setting off stun grenades and a group of protesters further up the road. How can you remain objective when you are experiencing the police brutality first hand? How can you remain objective when you have seen the brilliant resilience, strength and commitment of the students who have been pushed so far they have tried every single avenue to get a message across that their only resort is now destruction of property?
Although Monday night saw rampant police brutality, Tuesday night saw mass media censorship of any police brutality that could occur. As students set a barricade alight across Prince Alfred street between the African Media Matrix and Nelson Mandela hall, police came in numbers and advanced towards the students who had moved further up the hill to a second barricade. The group I was with made it clear that we were media, and advanced up the hill behind the police.
It was at this point that the police turned around, pointed their guns toward us and threatened that should we continue, we would be shot.
We once again made it clear that we were media and therefore had a right to be there. They once again threatened to shoot. The excuse they used was they did not want us to be hurt by students throwing rocks. We had acknowledged this threat but we did not give up, as from here on out, students could be brutalised like the night before, and there would be no record of it. We snuck around the back of the AMM, and proceeded up towards where we could hear shots being fired.
We were then once again threatened by the cops. “We have warned you, we will shoot you” were the words that rang down to us.
In fear, we returned to where police vans were parked below the barricade.
We stood, completely useless in our position as journalists, because of the police. I stood, knowing that any power we had to portray this narrative, was gone.
When approaching a group of police officers to ask what was happening up the hill, I was told to stop interfering with police officers’ duties. As a journalist of a registered media organisation, The Oppidan Press, we had a right to advance up campus, knowing full well the threats that existed in doing so and accepting them.
We can no longer perpetuate the trope of objective media, when stuck between a rock and police threats, it is the police we fear most. • Leila Kidson is. OppiFM Multimedia Editor, The Oppidan Press