Always cutting edge, Bush Radio explores issues in an insightful and meaningful way, giving the people of Cape Town access to media that highlights their voices – through music, entertainment, social upliftment and getting hands-on with media training.
The wide range of programming includes human rights, LGBTIQ+, gender, labour, job opportunities, basic health care, entrepreneurship, and offering information deemed necessary by our communities.
Africa’s oldest community radio station project, it was started in the 1980s by community activists and alternative media producers to explore ways in which grassroots media could be used for social upliftment and as an alternative voice during the apartheid era.
Today Bush Radio ensures it remains relevant, necessary and effects change through carefully curated media projects by working with partners to build dynamic programming. These projects include the Children’s Radio Education Workshop, where children aged between 6 and 18 years going live on-air, and the Media Kidocracy Konference where children aged 12 and up are trained to produce media content.
As an incubator for new media talent, Bush Radio has trained many young people from the Cape Flats and beyond who have now moved on into the media industry and beyond, also helping to build young start-ups and artists.
The community media sector is struggling in South Africa and even though Bush Radio is engaging on various levels, including with the government, to find a solution, we need daily costs such as rent, transmission, communication and stipends for the young people to get on-the-job training covered.
Your contribution will go towards ensuring that young people have a place where they can get access to quality media training and experience and that Cape Town’s communities continue to actively contribute to discussions around the issues affecting them.
It is with great shock that we at Bush Radio learnt this evening of the passing of Matthew Buck. Matthew was a volunteer, trainer and eventually Bush Radio’s main technical support and installer for our studios.
Below is an extract from a social media post by Adrian Louw our Programme Integrator:
“It’s Friday evening around 8pm on 28 July 1995, Matt and myself were the last two people in the building. The final touches to Africa’s oldest community radio station project’s first legal on-air studio were being put in place.
Then the worst possible thing happened – a buzz, then a click. The Soundcraft Series5 mixer’s power supply had blown. With just over a week to go for the official broadcast and now legal switch-on, it was a disaster. Matt called the supplier from his Motorola (he was the first person I knew who owned a cellphone) and after a few hours of intense cursing and fancy soldering, he had the power supply fixed.
Fast forward to 2008, and I was on one of my training missions in a town called Karas in Namibia, and Matt and his team were building the studios. Again, final testing for the handover to the crew there and then something on the telephone hybrid blew.
Ever since, Matt and I agreed that I would not be there when they did any final handovers. And so, when Bush Radio moved on to a digital studio in 2012, I took a day’s leave at the end of the install and handover… Matt and his team were responsible for the installation of most of the studios from the initial licensing of Community Radio in South Africa.
And, with so many who continue to exploit the sector, he was one of the few people we could rely on at Bush Radio.
Matthew (as I always insisted on calling him), I will miss you.
His final message to me was “Tell Adrian not to worry.”
To Levi, his family and friends: there would be no community radio sector in South Africa if it wasn’t for people like Matthew.
Matthew chose to walk with the people of South Africa and this continent.
Are you a new business looking to build your brand or increase your reach in Cape Town and beyond? We have an exclusive offer to first-time advertisers with us.
Winter Package 1
20 x 30 second ads
1 x 5 minute interview Cost: R1500
Winter Package 2
30 x 30 second ads
1 x 5 minute interview Cost: R2000
* Offer is valid to first-time advertisers from the 25 June to 1 September 2019.
* 100% deposit must be paid upfront to secure the booking.
* Advertising and interview must be completed by the 30 September 2019.
* Social media campaigns available.
Africa Day on the 25th May is the annual commemoration of the foundation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), now known as the African Union in 1963.
Join us as we celebrate all that makes us African. As Africa’s oldest community radio station project, this day has a special significance to us.
World Press Freedom day (3 May) is a date which celebrates the principles of press freedom, to evaluate and defend the media from attacks on their independence and to pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the exercise of their profession.
World Press Freedom day also acts as a reminder to governments of the need to respect and commitment to press freedom.
It serves as an occasion to inform citizens of violations of press freedom – a reminder that in dozens of countries around the world, publications are censored, fined, suspended and closed down, while journalists, editors and publishers are harassed, attacked, detained and even murdered.
World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 1993 following a Recommendation adopted at the twenty-sixth session of UNESCO’s General Conference in 1991. This in turn was a response to a call by African journalists who in 1991 produced the Windhoek Declaration on media pluralism and independence.
Divided into 30 minute segments the 3 hour show now picks up the pace and tightly packs in the information to educate all who use our roads while keeping you entertained with anecdotes, quips and insights into what makes biking a popular pastime in the Mother City and beyond.
Guests from various parts of our motorcycling world – from motorcycle clubs to individual adventurers, activists and deserving charities and causes all join us to bring you their very special stories.
We get to the nuts and bolts of technical issues, discuss the day to day issues that bug you and we unpack the topics of relevance to road users and bikers in particular.
Music is provided by several resident DJs and it simply rocks!
Professional Road Safety advice and information coupled with traffic law insights and information rounded off with Bike/Rider safety issues around common errors when riding and defensive riding/driving practice all seek to keep us all alive and having fun.
The following was written by Maryam Adhikarie on her blog about her experience as an intern. (Reposted with permission)
It has been months since I updated my blog and it feels really good to get back into the swing of things. Consequently, a few months ago I applied for my first ever real Journalistic job in media. I’d never ever thought any sort of job would change me as much as a person as working in the media industry.
Just finished my 1st year final assignments and rushed over to catch a ride to head over to an interview I never thought I would have gotten. With no prior experience to what an actual interview entails I sat sweating on the seat taking a look at the surroundings and tried not to look like this was my first time.
Think of any police, bad cop, good cop type of scenario where they interrogate the suspect. It felt and looked like that with the interviewer asking questions and the room with the glass windows. I was very unsure on how to behave and the teenager in me at the time could not stop fidgeting. It was a process that I felt took an eternity.
I got the golden phone call, and soon was in training alongside my newly wed colleagues. Thrown straight into editing as much sound as we possibly could. It was a painstaking process of editing sound that I assure you no intern liked, however, it would benefit us immensely later when it came to collecting sound.
From editing we were taken outside, which we appreciated. What we did outside was collect sound from people on the streets. A basic question on current affairs asked to as much as people as you can get on record, called a Vox Pops. This is where we learnt how to approach people properly to get there opinions on anything such as sex, sport, politics to circumcision.
I thoroughly enjoyed asking people out on the streets on there opinions about things. It showed me a different perspective on things and made me more knowledgeable about how people think, enforcing the fact that not everyone thinks the same. There are instances where I would not agree with what the person is saying, however, I would reiterate in my mind that it is not my job to disagree, my job is to get a balanced story.
A balanced story is not something I was well equipped for when I started. I had to learn what a balanced story entails. There was so much learning that had to be done, not that my first year of Journalism did not prepare me enough, it is that there is certain things you have to learn in the field when your are thrown into the deep end.
University in essence is a safety net, you can make mistakes, whereas in the media industry or more specifically radio, your name as well as the company is on the line and that is where the pressure comes from. You repeat a year or a module if you fail at University and that is really no ‘biggie’, but in the media industry if you do mess up you may not have a job the next day and no media company would want to hire you after that. Protect your name.
Radio, specifically, sounds pretty easy when you listen to it, however, think of radio as a piano keyboard, anyone can sit down and press down onto the keypads but how terrible will that sound to the ears. You need to know what you doing and it does takes loads of practice. This is called engineering.
Watching presenters engineer for themselves, playing jingles, playing sound and multitasking was an honor to watch. I laugh as I write this sentence because I soon had to engineer for myself and that was, personally, for me, the most difficult but the most rewarding when I knew how. I felt like a puppet controlling the air waves and controlling what you heard, it was and will probably always be the best.
In the couple of months that I was there, news was pouring out of every corner and it would be overwhelming at first. But, overtime you would get familiar with the influx and amount of work put in to bring out your best story. You would learn how to work alongside people. I learnt that you wont be an expert at first everything takes time, some more than others, have patience.
Other than hardship, stress and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, you also get to meet fellow presidents, ministers and politicians. Particularly in radio, because of the type of radio station I worked at you get to meet loads of different types of people from chefs to singers and dj’s, you really get a nice blend.
The media in South Africa commemorates the 41st anniversary of the infamous “Black Wednesday” which happened on the 19 October 1977, The World and Weekend World newspapers and several organisations were banned.
We have come a long way to media freedom in this country. Being Africa’s oldest community radio station project, which at one stage faced the full wrath of the apartheid government, we feel it is our duty and responsibility to promote accurate and fair reporting.
Bush Radio does not have the resources to be a “breaking news” station, but it is our duty to be accurate and give our listeners an opportunity to make up their own minds. This however can only happen if we present all sides of any argument, through good research and having access to role-players like politicians on a local, provincial and national level – this is proving harder and harder as officials simply refuse to comment or respond to questions from our newsroom and producers.
We call on all role-players who have an interest in improving the lives of the people on the Cape Flats to be accessible, especially to community media who truly speak and represent the people of Cape Town. It is only by engaging on the hard questions that we can truly claim to be improving the lives of citizens – and being a platform where people and audience can engage with political and social leaders. Thereby learning, healing and growing this wonderful city.
As a place where many young journalists start in their careers, we call upon our audience to hold us accountable and engage with us around our reporting and broadcasts.
Background on Black Wednesday:
On this day in 1977 in South Africa, then Minister of Justice Jimmy Kruger, banned The World and Weekend World newspapers by stating that these publications were “publishing inflammatory material that threatened the nation’s security” and the paper’s editor Percy Qoboza and other journalists were arrested and jailed.
19 organisations were also banned and apartheid critics were detained.
The organisations banned were BPC, SASO, Black Community Programmes, Black Parents Association, Black Women’s Federation, Border Youth Organisation, Eastern Province Youth Organisation, Medupe Writers Association, Natal Youth Organisation, National Youth Organisation, SASM, Soweto Students Representative Council, Soweto Teachers Action Committee, Transvaal Youth Organisation, Union of Black Journalists, Western Cape Youth Organisation, Zimele Trust Fund, Association for the Educational and Cultural Advancement of African People of South Africa.
Banning orders were also served on Beyers Naude and journalist Donald Woods.
As part of our Heritage Day celebrations, Bush Radio and Robben Island Museum is giving you a chance to visit the Island free on the 24 September 2018.
We are giving away 10 double tickets!
All you need to do is answer the following question:
Send your answer + the keyword RIM to 32158 and stand a chance to win a double ticket.
Lines close Thursday (20 September 2018) midday and winners will be announced on Friday in the Morning Cruise after 9am.
* This is a lucky draw, enter often to increase your chances.
* If you are selected you will have to collect before 4pm on Friday with identification.
* SMS costs R1 and free sms’s do not apply.
World Press Freedom day
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