The voice of Steve Biko from the SABC Radio Archives

The news archivist, Nare Mashiane, reminds us today, 12 September, about the death of Steve Biko.

Steve Biko, anti-apartheid activist, died on 12 September 1977. He was the founder of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa.

The photo is from the SABC and the sound of an interview is from the SABC Radio Archives. In commemoration of the man.

For more information from the SABC: "Confidant" remembers Steve Biko

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.

The Weekly Archivist interview: News and Actuality Archivist

Markus Mmutlana
SABC Radio Archivist: News and Actuality

The SABC Radio Archives has seven Archivists who specialize in specific areas/languages of expertise with regards the audio collections being kept in the Archives. There are also Archivists who focus on requests, and we have a Sound Engineer that assists us with technical issues. There will be a weekly interview that I will try to pose the same questions to each of the Archivists.
The SABC Radio Archives forms part of the SABC Media Libraries at the SABC.

The Archivist answering the questions this week is Markus Moroke Mmutlana.
He has been with the SABC Radio Archives for 12 years, and before that he was working in the regions. Seven years of his service in the Sound Archives was spent in the Northwest region in Mafikeng.

Markus continues with his story:
In the Northwest Region I had to resuscitate the Motsweding Fm Sound Archives that had been dismantled when the Pretoria Broadcast centre closed down. I fortunately was one of the main clients of the Radio Archives there and knew what was expected of me to do. Therefore unpacking all the programs that were sent over there and arranging them in their former order was not much of a problem as I had been a regular client of the Radio Archives while in Pretoria. Yes, I needed help sometimes and Peter Raseroka had to come from Johannesburg Archives to give me that.
I believe it is also important to share this with you, that I came into the Radio Archives having a broad knowledge of how programs were made since I had been with Radio Operations for years. There I‘ve been a technical man for Sport broadcast; Current Affairs; Outside Broadcast and inside Studio Programs Recordings; Open Air Musical productions such as Setswana traditional music done in Botswana; and ended up as a specialist Drama Technical producer. I gathered much knowledge of equipments used in those fields. May be let me also add that there are some dramas I wrote that I have had to archive. You’ll realize that these must have taken place over some years, but to me it seems like yesterday.

Markus, please give us a little bit of biographical information. (Where you grew up, where and what you studied and your work experience before you joined the SABC Radio Archives)
I was born in Lady Selborne in Pretoria, raised up in Skilpadfontein, Marapyane near Settlers. I an ex Mamelodian (Mamelodi High School Student) and also a Bexo (Bethel Training College ex-student).  I studied as a teacher and never taught, but matriculated through private studies.  Before joining the SABC, please don’t ask me when, I worked as a dispatch clerk for a company that was known as Pretoria Wholesale Druggist. Where that company was is now the Two Way Skinner Street.

Please tell us about a normal day in your studio. What material do you give priority to?
As I am a news and actuality Archivist for RSG and SAFM I must always know what is brewing in the government and various political fields and parties to be abreast with some fresh stories that one can quickly digitize on CD and also catalogue and avoid pushing too much material into backlog. Other than that my priority now is to deal with the 1996 Truth and Reconciliation Reports on Radio Sonder Grense, the Afrikaans SABC Radio Station.  This is part of the backlog we have – I have now completed cataloguing the SAFM 1996 TRC reports.

Tell us more about your collection and the scope of material you need to preserve.
My backlog includes news and actuality programs dating as far back as 1994 to date. These sometimes include tributes and other informative programs or features annual lectures of some of our country’s heroes.
  
Do you struggle with technical difficulties, and if so, what?

I have long been in this technical field of audio productions and if there be some difficulties that I pick up is the ever changing technology that forces one to consult with those who have the expertise every time. For example the problem I picked up with batch conversions of sound on Dalet using a memory stick, then to Wavelab. This would give me a problem when I burning a CD by refusing to burn indicating that the sound have not been converted to the correct Hertz. And the other challenge was to use Powerpoint which I do not regularly use.

If you have an anecdote about a specific piece of interesting audio material, please share it with us.
My most interesting story was when I picked up a news item, as I was going through some Current Affairs tapes, where former president Nelson Mandela told the news reporter how he was arrested by the police man, Forster on his way from Durban to Johannesburg. On being asked what his name was, he said he was David Motsamai. He tells the story with such humor.

Tell us why you enjoy doing the work that you do.
I am convinced that I am busy with preservation of important information about our selves and our country which would be needed by our children’s children and interested groups for research in the future.                          

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

The Weekly Archivist interview: News/Actuality and Sport Request Archivist

Bernard Monyai
News, Actuality & Sport Archivist

The SABC Radio Archives has Archivists who focus on requests. This is part of a series of weekly interviews where they will all answer the same questions addressed to each of them.
It is a way of getting a better understanding of what an Archivist do, as well as getting a better insight into the scope of our collections in the SABC Media Libraries.




The Archivist answering the questions this week is Bernard Monyai. He is the News, Actuality and Sport Request Archivist. He works very close with the news and actuality journalists of radio and television at the SABC.

Bernard, please tell us a little bit about yourself. (Where you grew up, where and what you studied and your work experience before you joined the SABC Radio Archives)

I grew up in Ga-Matlala-a-Thaba between Mokopane and Polokwane districts of Limpopo and studied BA degree specializing in Politics, Information Science and English at the University of the same province. I also obtained an Honours degree in Information Science at Rand Afrikaans University (now called UJ). I had previously worked at the bank before joining SABC Radio Archives.

Please tell us about a normal day in your studio. What type of requests do you receive?

The first thing I do in the morning is to check my voice and e-mail messages for any new requests for previously broadcasted radio footage on politics and sports.

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

News/actuality, current affairs and sports programmes are my specialty. I’m currently digitizing raw archival footage previously preserved on cassettes for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, containing more than a thousand minutes of audio.

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

Yes, it depends on the nature of the difficulty such as playback or recording equipment, internet, Dalet, Microsoft packages, technical PC, etc. Fortunately we do have our own Sound Engineer (Marius) and the BIT.

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

Former Malawian President, Hastings Banda on his arrival at London airport responded interestingly to questions from a certain journalist. His answers were like: “I’m not gonna answer that question”; “I’m not gonna tell you”, “Don’t ask me that question”, and so on.

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

I like being aware and knowledgeable about South African audio history in particular and the world in general. But the best part for me is providing access to archival material to all kinds of people from all sorts of persuasions and professions. The SABC Radio Archives collection is quite educational and intuitive and I guess it’s also entertaining. We preserve current affairs programmes daily and that means we are almost always up-to-date.

Question and blog post by Karen du Toit, Afrikaans Archivist at the SABC Radio Archives.