The Rep’s editor competes for national Vodacom Journalist of the Year awards
Following his success at the Eastern Cape Regional Vodacom Journalist Awards, where he won two awards for his journalism, Tembile Sgqolana The Rep editor attended the national awards ceremony in Johannesburg yesterday.
Sgqolana’s award-winning work in the sustainability category includes a Daily Maverick article titled: “Causes of fish die-off and stench at Jeffreys Bay’s Seekoei Estuary still a mystery .
He also received an award”for his Daily Maverick editorial piece titled: “Nothing is charming about candlelit dinners in my town in the Eastern Cape, where blackouts last for weeks.”
Sgqolana said: “I am happy for my work receiving recognition. I still believe there are stories that we need to write to help tell the stories of our people.
“Making a difference in people’s lives is all that matters.”
Sgqolana said he heard of the fish story from Nahoon Estuary Management chair Christo Theart. “He complained that the pollution in the estuary had led to fish and birds dying. The pollution had been happening for years and the matter was raised by the DA in 2011.
“I witnessed fish dying daily and yet the municipality was doing nothing to fix the wastewater treatment works which were polluting the two rivers that go straight to the estuary.
“As an environmental reporter, I had to investigate and find out what was happening and what was causing the bad stench from the water.”
The most challenging part was the blatant denial from the municipality.
“They kept on denying that there were sewage leaks despite reports and tests showing high E coli levels.”
His goal was for the municipality to own up and attend to fixing leakages.
“Whenever I write a story, I aim to get responses and have the problem fixed. In this story, I wanted the municipality to fix the wastewater treatment works for the pollution to stop.
“To see that something is done after writing a story is what makes me love what I do.”
At the time he was working on the fish story, he was confronted by a frustrating week of electricity problems in Komani.
“I struggled with the internet and sometimes I had to go to the hill in Khayelitsha to check my emails and make calls for the story. I did not expect that this story was going to win an award.
“I would sit in my house watching a candle, instead of experiencing romance, it brought the fear of the house being burnt and the freezing weather of Komani made matters worse.
“In this opinion piece, I wanted to draw the attention of the readers to how Komani had been slowly deteriorating.”
At the same time he was shedding light on how as a journalist he struggled working at home during this time.
The awards start yesterday at 5pm and by the time of going to print, it was not clear whether Sgqolana had won.