The new Archivist interview: News & Actuality Archivist – Ntokozo Khanyile

The SABC Radio Archivists specializes in specific areas of expertise with regards radio and language related audio collections of the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

This is part of a series of interviews where I am posing the same questions to each of the Archivists.

The recently appointed archivist in the News & Actuality section is Ntokozo Khanyile.

She started in the SABC Radio Archives from June this year , and she is now responsible for all the news and actuality radio archival material.


Ntokozo, please tell us about where you grew up, where and what you studied and your work experience before you joined the SABC Radio Archives. 


I grew up in Protea North, Soweto. I studied at the University of Johannesburg and finished my BA Information Science degree in 2008. In 2009 I started with BA (Hons) Information Management which I am yet to complete. Before joining the SABC in April, I worked at South African National Parks (Sanparks), Afrizan Personnel and CSIR.

Please tell us about a normal day in your studio. What material do you give priority to? 


I normally do cataloguing of available material. I usually prioritise new material from SABC News, especially press conferences and important speeches.

Tell us more about your collection and the scope of material you need to preserve. 


My collection is made up of actuality from SAfm, Metrofm and RSG, as well as anything I receive from the SABC News department.

Do you struggle with technical difficulties, and if so, what? 


I'm not a very technically gifted individual but I try my best not to break anything into a thousand pieces. I haven’t gotten the necessary technical training but I have managed to maneuver around the studio and figured how almost everything works. 

If you have an anecdote about a specific piece of interesting audio material, please share it with us. 


Most of the audio material I get is about news that I know of already because I tend to read from every other online news source there is. But what is interesting, is hearing the different views that people give on various issues and that opens up a new way of thinking about, seeing and analyzing the issues at hand. 

Tell us why you enjoy doing the work that you do. 


I enjoy the work I am doing because it’s something new and I am always looking to learn something new. I have also gotten a different perspective of archives; that it’s not as boring and menial as most people make it sound. 




Related post:


The Weekly archivist interview: News and Actuality (Markus Mmutlana, our previous News and Actuality archivist)


Questions and blog post by Karen du Toit, Afrikaans archivist in the SABC Radio Archives.