I suppose one could say notoriety has its own rewards or one media’s waste is another’s windfall, but that would be self-indulgent codswallop.
The fact is I start off on a new road today — television journalism — as I join what looks like an outstanding team of journalists at e.tv in the sub-editing and quality-control department.
To say I am apprehensive and nervous is sine qua non. I have never worked in television journalism before except as a guest on talk shows and a few productions of in-house corporate news programmes for clients and employers.
I spent three years doing ad hoc TV commercials, acting in some television series and a few films (bit parts only, of course) during the 1980s. The legendary Gordon Mulholland was my agent and mentor along with the likes of Bobby Heaney, Annabelle Linder and Adrian Stead, but I’m certain that is far removed what I will be doing in the engine room of the best TV news organisation in South Africa.
Hopefully it is the start of something momentous. I thrive on those kinds of challenges and, with the permission of my bosses (who seem a vastly more professional, rational and advanced crowd than I had become used to), I will keep you posted on the Adventures of LK in TV Newsland.
I pledge to give it my finest shot — as always. And that’s the extent of my promises — in this country promises have a nasty tendency to be less like popcorn and more like popped balloons.
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17 Responses to “A new dawn”
Kriel good luck. This is truly good news and I look forward to some “energetic” investigative journalism from you, Deborah/Debra and the team. They need some energy.
The differences between press and TV journalism are quite noticeable. As long as you and the e.tv team are on the same page - what a rush.
Those years of Gordon Mulholland were a while ago - wish you luck.
Alex Smit-Stachowski on February 25th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
That’s wonderful news Llewellyn. I’m very glad for you. Good luck with the new job and I’m looking forward to reading about your adventures in TV-land.
Llewllyn what truly fantastic news! The Sowetan’s short sighted knee jerk reaction has actually had some positive outcome. I wish you all of the best in your new endeavour and I have no doubt you will outshine the rest - go kick ass!
[…] last year for revealing confidential company information on a blog, announced today that he has joined e.tv’s sub-editing and quality control department. addthis_url = […]
Good Luck L. I hope you can keep up the energy levels and the intensity, especially in the face of the cowardice shown by your colleagues in the BJF and their ilk.
Llewellyn did outline on a previous occasion KYSSYG is an acronym for Know Your Story, Stand Your Ground. I think it’s quite a cool motto, or salutation or whatever you want to call it.
Wello! Feeling the edge of new beginnings is a rush de luxe - welcome these sensations! Enjoy the ‘new’ adventure and keep on exploring and challenging - you know how best to do it! Can’t wait to see what you deliver for e.tv going forward. Go show them!
@ LLew: In the words of Edward R Morrow, that fearless CBS fighter for free press and the underdog: Good night and good luck! (GNAGL)
Marcel Goulding and his unionised, disabled and women centred ETv seems to gathering talent with the incoparable Sally Burdett, Jeremy Maggs from SABC and now you from Soweto. Please ask the Cape Town presenters to pronounce their “H”’s so we can enjoy human’s rather than ‘Yumans”
Go for it! but please ask Marcel to vet your blogs
Congratulations KL!!! It is a break well deserved. After all, for how long can a white journalist remain unemployed in South Africa?
You are one of us from Soweto and will, hopefully, bring a fresh, insightful and curious perspective to the station.
You know that the blacks in the townships, especially the politically conscious, have been crying foul ever since the mysterious departure of Joe Thloloe as big news honcho at the station. We hope you will, first, dig into the story and clear the air about allegations of a purge of Pan-Africanist inclined black journalists from the channel. If you could do it at the Sowetan, let us see if you can do it at progressive and independent e.tv.
But most important, we are looking forward to your perspective as an insider on how news is distorted. It is a perception out there that the channel is hostile to black government (sic.) YOU are the only one who can expose this LIE.
LK, you are good, effective and die hard trust sayer. You are one of the few men who has the courage to break ranks and name names. You must tell us how the corporate news culture characterized by close-mindedness is suffocating freedom of expression in the land. It is for this reason that there is NO DIVERSITY in how news is covered.
We need you, more than ever before, to restore journalistic integrity that has seen the broadcast and print media perceived to be opposed to the government simply because it is black (sic.)
YOU are our voice of conscience. All the best to making South Africa media be relevant, meaningful, positive, balanced, accurate, truthful and factual.Otherwise, many of us are tired of predictable and monotonous news which are not worth the name.
Thanks for the good wishes Folks. TV is vastly different from print, but I am surrounded in the e.tv newsroom by some of the most professional, dedicated, hardworking and courageous journalists in the country - a far cry from what I had become accustomed to at Sowetan. I am honoured and humbled to share my craft with them.
@ Sandile. Please, my friend, in the name of everything that is holy - LEARN TO ORDER YOUR THOUGHTS. These mammoth diatribes are b-o-r-i-n-g, and disrespectful. A thought that cannot be distilled into a few powerful words, is not worth communicating - unless you’re Dostoevsky (which you aren’t). If you’ve been around a read a little you know that only the empty-headed propagandists toss words around like plastic bags at a taxi rank. My friend, you would not last 10 seconds in the media!!
You have the temerity to work for the ANC, the greatest single threat to this country, and try to smokescreen your way out of the detritus of their failures by pointing fingers at the media. Thou hypocrite! Just glancing through the media in the last 24 hours, aside from the horror of UFS, I casually compiled a list of 42 monstrous lies, disasters, denials, falsehoods and plain idiocies on the part of your puppeteers. And it isn’t because they’re predominantly black. It is because they are dishonest, evil, amoral, corrupt, lazy, greedy, dictatorial thugs and criminals devoid of any decency or integrity whatsoever.
Take the beam out of your own eye before trying to remove the splinter from ours, Sandile.
Llewellyn,
I have only recently become acquainted with your work through this Thought Leader site and I hope that your new position at e-tv will permit you to continue write on this site.
Re: The UFS Four: Savages come in all shapes and sizes, ages and genders, colours and nationalities. They begin as thugs and end as war criminals if given the opportunity. Think of Krystal Nacht. The concentration camps–here as well as in Europe. Think of Pol Pot in Cambodia. Think of Burma today. Think of Kosovo. These ’students’ are obviously not scholars; they are not even truly students or they would have absorbed the wisdom that is there for all to read: savagery begets more of the same, ad infinitum. The purpose of education is to free from the folly ( and the stupidity) of short-term, impulsive, or hate-fueled
action. We are here to create not to destroy. Destruction of other beings is the ultimate crime and that is where these are four are headed if they are not stopped now. Perhaps a few years of working in the townships on development projects might teach them what they have failed to learn at ’school’.
Thought Leader has been impoverished since you chose (note) to withdraw from public debate. But I suppose it is just another form of braindrain - if people do not leave our country they withdraw from helping in other ways.
More importantly, if you are still at etv News i would love to know what you think of the new service. 24 hours of repeats, more time on self promotion than on updating news, fancy equipment but lack of people on the ground do not a great broadcaster make. It would be good to see eNews living up to its hype. I don’t see the presence of you there so you must have done there what you did @ Sowetan - which has become pure gutter journalism now. You must learn to stick to the knitting, Kriel
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Kriel good luck. This is truly good news and I look forward to some “energetic” investigative journalism from you, Deborah/Debra and the team. They need some energy.
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