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11 June 2019 | Story Moeketsi Mogotsi | Photo Moeketsi Mogotsi
New KovsieCyberSta
Read to roll: The dynamic duo of Olebogeng Tlhong and Anderson Mosia are always camera ready and they’ll be telling you what is happening on and around campus over the next year. PHOTO: Moeketsi Mogotsi

The search for the 2019/2020 #KovsieCyberSta team has been an exciting one, with Anderson Mosia and Olebogeng Tlhong coming out tops to beat the competition.
Anderson, a second-year BA Languages student, didn’t let last year’s failure deter his efforts to enter again this year. 

“I am hoping to achieve a lot of things. My milestone would be to raise the bar high for the next stars; I've got a lot in store,” he says. 

He says he is passionate about spreading love, and he will use this new platform to express himself.

It has been first-time charm for first-year LLB student, Olebogeng. She says as soon as she saw the competition was open, she knew it was something that would fit her persona. 

“I am hoping to not only grow as an individual, but to leave my mark. The question that I asked myself before stepping into this role, was –what’s going to be different because you stepped in? I aspire to document and present events in the best way that I know, while being open to learning and, through my knowledge, inspire and teach others.”

The 19-year-old says she will use her passion for serving to express herself best over the next 12 months. 

“I believe that it is my duty to use the knowledge I have acquired/am to acquire in order to make somebody else’s life better. So essentially, I am a servant leader; I believe that there is enough room for everybody to succeed,” she adds.

As #KovsieCyberStas, the duo will cover events on and around campus, while filming and presenting short video clips to give fellow Kovsies some insight into these events across the UFS’s digital platforms.



News Archive

Photo manipulation in journalism: evil, crutch or lifebuoy?
2017-09-04

Description: Albe Grobbelaar Tags: Photo manipulation, Albe Grobbelaar, Albe, OJ Simpson, journalism, Department of Communication Science, Communication Science   

Albe Grobbelaar, veteran journalist and lecturer in the
Department of Communication Science at the UFS.
Photo: Rulanzen Martin


Since the 1800s the manipulation of photographs has been common practice, and who can forget the OJ Simpson Time magazine cover in 1994? Albe Grobbelaar, lecturer in the Department of Communication Science at the University of the Free State (UFS), asked in a special lecture on 18 August 2017 whether “Photo manipulation in Journalism” was an evil habit, a crutch or a lifebuoy.

“As a journalist I have always been interested in photography. And the principle of photo manipulation or tampering with photos, as we call it, is something that has interested me ever since,” Grobbelaar said. Photo manipulation is an area that has garnered many academic interest and is not a new trend but a practice that started in the 1830s when photos came into popular use. “It is not always done with ulterior motives, artists played with photographs to get unique effects.” Photo manipulation is not only to create fake news, but is sometimes used to convey novelty and create shock to news readers. 

Different viewpoints for different circumstances
He talked about the spectrum of viewpoints on photo manipulation. Some conservative journalism schools say photos should never be retouched while other feel it is fine to tamper with pictures. “What I tried to convey in the lecture was that one should consider different circumstances differently,” Grobbelaar said. As a journalist he believes that news photos should never be manipulated.

He mentioned the example of the mugshot of OJ Simpson that the Los Angeles Police Department released to the media. “Newsweek and Time both used the photo on their front pages, but Time deliberately darkened the picture so that OJ, a black man, would appear more sinister,” Grobbelaar said. It is, however, common practice in the fashion industry to retouch images that are used in fashion magazines. 

Use own judgment to validate photos
In the age of social media it has become easy to manipulate photos and which has been labelled fake news. “I would advise people to use their own judgment when validating the authenticity of photos,” Grobbelaar said. It is important to verify whether they are from a reliable news outlet.

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