As a blogging journalist there are certain things that you need to consider so that your blog will be more attractive so that it can attracts more readers to it, which are biographies, profile pictures etc. As a blogger the first thing you need to have is a professional  biography that is going to give your readers more information about yourself, your achievements, abilities that you have and also inform them what your blog will be about. Your blog must have a profile picture that is going to help you to sends the message that you’re current with innovation, and in case you’re hands on showcase, it can help strengthen the image you’re attempting to paint of yourself to planned managers – on the off chance that you set aside a tad of effort to do it the correct way. To start blogging is important more especially for a journalism student because on your blog you just practising what you have learnt in the course, and what you have to apply will give you credits and open opportunities for you to get hired in media industry without having to look for jobs. Having a blog as a student journalist is so important even if you were just doing it for funny but at the end it trains you so that when you work for those giant media newsroom, you will be perfect in everything like writing skills, communicating and presenting skills which are considered the most in the media industry nowadays.

Who said that a reviewer’s work cannot be reviewed

Review Brent Meersman three pieces

On this review I am going to analyze, express my positive opinion about the three articles by Meersman and I will use these articles as the body of my review. These articles are Bitten by the food bug, Rethinking the National Arts Festival and Confused but content. A review is a formal analysis of a book, occasion, article, restaurants etc. for a publication. Review can be about books, articles, whole classes or fields of writing, engineering, workmanship, design, eateries, approaches, presentations, exhibitions, and numerous different structures. The most significant component of a review is that it is an analysis, not just an outline and it creates contention. The person who is doing a review have to state on his/her that it is his or her opinion of the work. Even though there is no authoritative technique to composing a review, there are steps that you must follow when writing.

Brent Meersman is a Cape Town based writer, author, journalist, and a reviewer. He has published several books, worked in few news publications and he had reviewed several shows for Mail and Guardian. He is known of his impressive work, as a compulsive traveler because he visited 81 countries and he is currently a co-editor of GroundUp news

Bitten by the food bug article is about a restaurant review where Brent tells us when he started writing about food and what audiences were saying about his first review that he wrote in 2008. This article took place in Cape Town, because he said, “it seemed to be the only thing we Capetonians cared enough about to grow the M&G’s subscriber base”. The main character of this article seems like he was mastering the reviewing thing because he started to write and the audiences were texting him as if they have been waiting for that, some were stopping him in center malls.

Rethinking the National art festival article is about National arts festival which was established in 1974 when the 1820 Settlers National Monument was official opened, since then it has been operating and it allows each and every race an opportunity to attend it. On this event there is a lot that is happening some are selling hand crafted statues, beads, hand made bags and many more. This event is happening yearly, around June or July and it took place in Grahamstown. The main characters in this article I think its Grahamstown residents that are locked outside of this event because even though this festival does offer R250 000 worth of tickets gratis to people who wish to attend but cannot afford the tickets it happens to watch more than 20 shows but not see a black face. I am not happy about this article at all because it so useless to give people an opportunity to attend an event, but you cannot see them performing in any show.

And Confused but content is about a restaurant review where Brent criticize a restaurant with an untutored waiter, a chef that struggles to tell you more about food when you are asking. This article took place in Cape Town, I am not happy with this article because it is said that even though a review is an opinion you cannot use my and I like the way Meersman does on the last part of this article.

What I like about his food articles is that they have a catchy header that makes a reader to want to read the actual article, and they all talk about his citizen.

Marikana informal settlements residents in Philippi near Cape Town, have been staying in this community for a long time and they have been waiting for service deliveries for years but there is no improvement. This community falls under ward 88 which is ruled by Councillor Siphiwo Nqamnduku, who is an African National Congress representative. Ever since this community was established residents’ have been using illegal electricity, as the land it is privately owned so the City of Cape Town could not install electricity because they are still solving the land issues in court.   According to Marikana residents, Zolisa Makhekhe said that their lives are in high risk because the illegal electricity they use can lead to fire breakage and once it does that it can affect many shacks as they are close to each other due to high shack density. Makhekhe said that these illegal connections also affect children that are playing around just because sometimes you will find some of the connections hanging and the children end up touching them not knowing that they put their lives in danger, he also mentioned that the people who are mostly being affected by these illegal connections are the ones who perform these action because sometimes they can be electrocuted by the electricity while they are connecting in an electric pole. The Western Cape Premier Alan Winde asked for a meeting with the City of Cape Town and private landowners, in order to know how they are going to solve this issue

Witsand youth lives are in danger especially in nowadays, as many of the youth in this community has engaged themselves to night parties. They engaged themselves to unnecessary things since most of them are unemployed due to lack of employment opportunities in the surrounding factories. Some of them they are being called by the names, everyone know about them just because every weekend they go out and sometimes it’s not that it is something they are willing to do in their lives, but they are being forced and it’s the peer pressure they got from their friends not knowing that they put themselves in a danger. Community residents are left shocked by this matter, as they say that if the church they have in the community have formed something that will keep the youth busy like church choirs, church tournaments that will involve the youth of this community that would haven’t happened. And what surprises them the most is that that they have more than 60 churches in this community, but they only see leaders of these churches when they want to build a church after that they don’t even bother themselves to meet with the community members and engage themselves to community meetings. 

Community leader Luvuyo Matshisi said that the death of the youth in this community that is happening is caused by the shebeen’s that are opening for the whole night. “As the community leaders we called all residences to a meeting where we discussed about the issue of the shebeens that aren’t closing during the weekends, and we have agreed that all the shebeen must close before the midnight’’, Matshisi said. He also mentioned that even though they thought that their plan will solve the situation nothing has changed but the things became worse than before, as they are still receiving death report that happened in shebeen and he said that most of the people who are being affected by this situation are woman.

SANCO chairperson Thobile Maseti said that as community members they even tried to report the matter to the near Police station, and they said that they will provide them one or two police vehicle that will patrol in the community at night up until in the morning. And the police officers suggested to visit the shebeens that are selling alcohol without a permit and took all the alcohol starting from the Friday afternoon, thinking that by doing so that will solve the matter. He also mentioned that the police officers plan has not made any change, because they have discovered that some of the shebeen owners have came with a plan of taking their alcohol to their neighbours so that when the police officers have came will not find anything, and some of the shebeen owners have claimed that what is being done is not fair because its how they make money as they are unemployed.

The community Committee Nolufefe Mbombo said that she tried to communicate with the people that are working in Department of Education and asked for some learnerships in order to help the youth of the community. “ I got the learnership that wants 50 people that have passed their matric and this learnership was going to train them for free and pay them for the whole time of the training, I called everyone to a meeting and addressed the matter and the date of the beginning of the training. But not even a half of the number of the people who were needed have gone to that training, they just ignored that internship while they were given a time and a chance to do something that will better their lives.” And what they did after that they gone around spreading lies saying that I chose my people to that training while the training required people with matric, so after all that I asked everyone to look for a jobs or internships on City of Cape Town website because they are so ungrateful”

Roeland street is situated in the East Side of Cape Town City, a street that is full of innovations, life and a creativity as well as street that is submerged in past and disaster. Roeland street is a long street that intersects Buitenkant, Canterbury and Harrington streets and is a street that leads to the parliament where it meets with Plein street and St John’s road. 

And its where you get greeted by a statue of Louis Botha and blowing flags in front of the Parliament that attracts most of the tourists because daily you will find people in front of that statue and taking pictures of it. And all the buildings on this street on the left- and right-hand side are numbered which makes it easy for tourists to get the building they are looking for at this street quickly. Roeland street has materials and businesses between each other including bookshop, offices, coffee shops, restaurants etc.

At the top of Roeland street, you will find a Fire station that always have trucks brigade inside the building or outside the building that are ready to go and save burning homes and buildings around the city. 

And when you are moving down the fire station you will find Cape Peninsula University of Technology Campus building which is an Informatics and Design faculty that is offering media studies only which includes Public Relations, Photography and Journalism studies.

When you are walking or driving down the street from Cape Peninsula University of Technology towards Parliament there’s Roeland street Prison or Archives on your left hand, which was built in late 1800s and it was built to keep prisoners from 1859 to 1970 during the Dutch settlers but then since the Pollsmoor opened they demolished Roeland street Prison and they replaced it by the Western Cape Archives. In nowadays it is used to help those who want to have an access and to read archival records and once you entered the building you will be required to fill in an admission card. And people who are visiting this building to do their research are required to carry their writing tools, it can be a laptop or tablets but not fountain pens.

There is also Food lover’s market is one of the shops with a guaranteed hygiene and fresh products that sells fresh variety of fruit and vegetables that is compulsory to have a portion of them daily for a good healthy. It also sells fresh baked food fresh from the bakery, and it makes healthy snacks, sandwiches and all baked stuff daily that will help students and those who work around Roeland street to start their day in a good stamina. It also run a great 10 Bucks special every Tuesday in selected items.

Opposite Food Lover’s there is Roeland square house which is situated at the upper Canterbury street, it was built in 1996 and it has different electronics shops and offices inside it. And one of the shops that is found inside Roeland square is Digi cape an online shop that sells Apple products like iPhones, Apple watches and iPhone accessories and they deliver nationwide for free.

And at no.62 there is Vida e caffé, a coffee shop that is inspired by Portugal street café. It is one of the known coffee shops in South Africa that has a great service, it is selling coffees and mouth-watering muffins, toasties and sandwiches for breakfast and lunch at an affordable price.

And at corner of Buitenkant and Roeland street we have Kimberley Hotel which is known as one the oldest traditional pubs in Cape Town, it was established in 1895 and was used as a departure point for horse drawn carriages at the time. The hotel has 11 rooms for guests and each room has an internet access. It has a balcony that helps guest to see the beauty of the Cape Town including its landmarks like Table Mountain and Lion’s Head at a close distance without. And there’s Barney’s Bistro dining restaurant in the building that caters good food and cheap drinks.

Not far from Kimberley Hotel, at No.71 there’s The Book Lounge an independent book shop that offers a variety of limited books edition for everyone including the kids story time books. It has coffee and snacks for sale, and it hosts story time sessions every Saturday at 11:00 for children. 

Roeland has something for everyone including the citizens and those who are visitors in the city. 

It’s also available on https://zethuplati916.journoportfolio.com/

2019 elections seem to be the best elections ever

After 2019 elections people are hoping for a change and they are willing not to get poor services delivery at all as all parties promised to do their best to make them happy than previous years.

Mluleki Mantanga said that he’s not sure if which party is going to win because of the way other political parties do things and have many followers, but he believe that these political parties will make a huge change after the elections, and he think that the more political parties compete with others it gives them more power and energy to work well to make a change hence they don’t want to lose their votes and seats in the national assemble. Nomzamo Nkundla said she will vote for EFF and she believe that it will win the elections because the EFF leader Julius Malema always say the things that prevent  growth and equality in the country which made them aware that if he can be a President he will do a lot as he knows exactly what need to be fixed that affect the country, and that attracted them as South African youth simply because they want a growth and as we all know that there is high rate of unemployment, his words made them to vote for him just because he promised to bring back their land and provide jobs to every unemployed youth and the way he criticise other parties it tells them that even if they can continue voting for those parties there will be no change but they will make things worse than before. Speaking to Power FM Fikile Mbalula said that all of them as ANC members they expect overwhelming and decisive win in Cyril Ramaphosa’s ruling as President in South Africa he even mention that his party will improve from the last or previous election results but he refused to give the exact number of the 2019 result prediction he avoid disappointments and to being reminded of what he said if he lose the elections.

Nomzamo said that we must wait for 9 of March for EFF’s overwhelming and better results

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton