Best News Story Liberty award winner and journalist of 702 & Eye Witness News, Mia Lindeque shares her insights on what it takes to create award-winning radio news. Her career started in 2010 at Jacaranda FM, before joining 702 where she has been now for five years.
She advises that in order for a journalist to be outstanding, he/she would need to look for content in unfamiliar territory, because media is cut-throat industry and for her looking for a niched space where she can shine and thrive, took going to communities and covering the so called small stories, which eventually lead her to earning her ‘spotlight’.
While Lindeque was covering the story of Mayor Herman Mashaba who was cleaning Joburg streets, her competitors were more focused on the headlining news and this is the very thing that gives her stories the edge. She adds that looking at the finer details gives one edge that sets them apart from the rest in the field.
She describes her storytelling as using audio to write or create the imagery in the mind of the listener. The first thing she does when she arrives at the scene is hold up her microphone to capture the ambiance for the story, she then takes supplementary notes to put everything together. According to Lindeque, the ambiance sound, gives the story edge that will set you and your story apart from the rest.
She also recommends using the Twisted Wave app which assists in recording and editing sound on the field.
Lindeque, also played the story that won her the Liberty award, which was about the raiding of a building in Johannesburg by the Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) in search of illegal substances. Lindeque recommends the Irig hardware, a nifty yet affordable which can be attached to a recording device such as a microphone; she reckons it is a really good quality tool to use for editing sound on the field.
In conclusion, she says “Radio is no longer just about voices and the voice packaging only, “we are more than that now”. She says at EWN there are trained to take pictures, capture and edit sound.
Lebogang Bridget Lepere
(Edited by Simbarashe Honde)