Radio presenters are 'crossing borders' to equip themselves with skills

Budding community radio presenters from South Africa and Zimbabwe were equipped with much-needed skills during a joint radio enrichment session held at the Nancefield Multipurpose Centre on Sunday, 26 March.

A delegation, comprising nine members from Lotsha FM in Zimbabwe, joined their 24 fellow presenters from Musina FM in the historic first-of-its-kind initiative, aimed at empowering community radio presenters from both countries.

Musina FM was established 14 years ago, while Lotsha FM was officially launched in Beitbridge, Zimbabwe, in February this year.

Facilitated by the popular former Phalaphala FM and Capricorn FM radio host, Jos Ncube, the session touched on topics such as ethics in radio journalism, characteristics of a good radio presenter, the technical aspects of radio, time management in radio broadcasting, content production, radio marketing and interaction with listeners.

Musina FM’s station manager, Justice Langa, said that joining hands with Lotsha FM in line with the working relationship between the Municipality of Beitbridge in Zimbabwe and Musina Local Municipality was important. “While the two municipalities are working together on service-delivery issues, we felt that we needed to expand this relationship into our broadcasting space. Besides that, we are one people, only separated by man-made borders, and it is important to keep that human bond strong. We have learnt a lot through this session as we have shared practices that will help both Musina FM and Lotsha FM to grow,” he said.

Thupeyo Muleya, the content coordinator and one of the founding members of Lotsha FM, said the session had been very beneficial to both parties. “Taking into consideration that Lotsha FM has been on air for only two months, the session was a learning ground for our presenters, who are still relatively new to the radio industry. The practices we have learned here will help us to build our new brand, which still needs a lot of support to grow. Our sincere gratitude goes to our colleagues at Musina FM and the facilitator, Jos Ncube, for coming together to organise this ground-breaking session,” he said.

Date:01 April 2023

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