Student reporter Tristan de Robillard takes us on a cheeky journey through the archives of Rhodes University's oldest newspaper, revealing a proud tradition of outspoken, provocative journalism.
Student reporter Tristan de Robillard takes us on a cheeky journey through the archives of Rhodes University's oldest newspaper, revealing a proud tradition of outspoken, provocative journalism.
Activate newspaper, formerly Rhodeo, celebrated its 65th birthday last month. Rhodeo began in 1947, not as a fully-fledged newspaper, but rather as a series of newsletters containing editorials, letters to the editor, sports articles, poems and fluffy features that were more like gossip pages than anything else.
The paper didn't take itself very seriously and reflected the mindset of the time, even displaying blatant sexism and racism. Although such discrimination wouldn't be permitted in today's media, there were some praiseworthy aspects of this era's writing.
According to this writer, the style was significantly wittier and more entertaining to read than today’s writing is. Consider a turn of phrase in an article called 'The He-man-cipation of Rhodes', which covered a debate between the men’s and women’s debating societies about the emancipation of women.
The editor at the time wrote of one woman’s argument that, “Miss M. Downing broke the ice, but she was horribly logical.” Biased though it was, it's nonetheless amusing to try to decipher what it was that the editor meant by “horribly logical”.
This kind of sly language is hard to find in journalism these days because of the premium placed on being impartial, so to find it in a newspaper at all is jarring and, dare I say it – refreshing – despite the questionability of the statement itself.
Those writers could hardly be intimidated and the biting wit bound to their style resulted in some very enjoyable, if unrepresentative pieces. Budding journalists were more or less free to pursue whatever ideas they wanted to, in any way they wanted (for better or worse) giving the writing a lively stamp of personality and attitude.
This was not to last however, and Rhodeo journalism became more serious and professional after World War II. It gradually cast aside the more obsolete elements of its content in the years between 1941 and 1947 and started to focus on serious issues that affected the students; the biggest at that time being the war itself.
This dominated issue after issue until 1945, when Rhodeo finally dropped the newsletter format and became a four-page broadsheet. With the new format came new promises of an end to discrimination, and to strive towards maintaining relevance to student life on campus.
It became a more political paper, upping its relevance in the Apartheid era that was just beginning. Apartheid’s shadow was just starting to grow at this time, and Rhodeo became very serious, fully advocating the university’s “no segregation” stance and writing articles that openly criticised the legislation of the National Party.
This wasn't easy in the face of the somewhat draconian society of the time, however, and even caused the paper to be banned briefly in 1957. This occurred after the students failed to submit a copy for censorship, something which was supposed to be done for every issue.
But this didn't last long and in 1969 censorship was lifted completely, following the editorship of Paul Maylam, who is now a professor in the History department.
He made his mark by emphasising protest writing in his editorials. Following the increased freedom given to the paper, in the 1970s Rhodeo became more liberal and radical in its content and style, losing much of its “proper” demeanour.
Politics remained a strong aspect of the paper, but newer focuses like environmentalism and gender issues began to receive more attention. The language was also freer than ever before, as shown in a column called 'Bitch', where students were invited to complain about anything at all.
This continued into the 1980s when Rhodeo became even more outspoken about what was happening in the country. One editorial boldly stated: “In this issue we once again have to carry a story on another death in detention, another feature on the dreaded poverty here in the Eastern Cape, a hair-raising journal of the police brutality and political puppet paranoia (no strings attached) and another sad tale of the development of underdevelopment.”
Once again, the paper had no qualms about attacking whatever needed attacking. The writers and editors spared no one from their bite, making it one of many community papers not content to passively observe a problematic society without challenging it.
When the 1994 elections arrived, Rhodeo underwent changes along with the country. Talks were entered into to change the name of the paper because the people who produced it no longer wanted to be associated with the name of Cecil John Rhodes, who was an infamous racist and imperialist.
Keeping with the paper’s rejection of racism, sexism, homophobia and other forms of discrimination, and with the new South Africa arriving, the change seemed necessary. The name Activate was settled on because of the fact that the paper has never been afraid to express itself and has always been active in some of the country's and campus's most important affairs.
Since the birth of Activate not much has changed, except for the arrival of a competitor in 2007. The Oppidan Press was founded by two undergraduates, namely Lionel Faull and Ines Schumacher, to give Activate a run for their money and provide students living off-campus with a regular newspaper.
It received no funding from the university in the beginning, relying solely on advertising to stay afloat, but it has gone on to be very successful and still operates five years later. Grahamstown’s rich journalistic history has seen many important stories written, as well as numerous journalists training at Rhodes and going on to work across the country and the globe.
Reporting in the community has grown immensely since its humble beginnings, and will hopefully continue to be a defining feature of Grahamstown for many more years to come.
This story is based on original reporting by Karlien van der Wielen, whose story can be read in the 29 May 2012 edition of Activate.
