How to make friends and piss-off influential people

Last week I made friends with anemones, this week I probably made some enemies and if I didn't I'm likely to make a few by writing this. It is my forth week in the Cadet school and one of our tasks was to follow the story of Juluis Malema and carry it forward in anyway we could. For those who may not be familiar with South African politics Malema is the president of the ruling political party's youth league and he has been accused of using his influence to win government tenders for his own profit. As a result of this task I have spent much of the last few days chasing leads, phoning influential people and generally tearing my hair out. Today Malema phoned me in response to a text I sent him. Sure he refused to answer my questions but still he took me seriously as a journalist.

And therein lies the problem... My research was not for a big story it was for a class assignment and while maybe if I uncovered something major the paper would have run with it, I still felt like I was harassing busy people for sport. In addition Malema told me that he would not answer my questions because he had already commented to a journalist from our group. So you see it got me thinking that what if because I spoke to somebody they then refused to another journalist who needed the information more than I did.

Don't get me wrong I understand that this was a training exercise designed to teach us how to investigate the high profile cases and I do understand the value of it. I just feel as a journalist we also have a responsibility to not harass people unduly or we may risk losing our credibility.

Anyway that rant over, check out these pictures I took on Saturday. With the mercury pushing 38 degrees in Cape Town and the wind howling fires were inevitable. I managed to capture a Titan helicopter in the process of fetching water to douse a run-away fire Signal Hill. Enjoy!