Mpho Raborife superimposed over the Media Voices orange and gold logo

Welcome to the latest season of Media Voices: Big Noises! This season, sponsored by Glide Publishing Platform, we’ll be talking to publishing people with something to say. Media Voices co-host Peter Houston is tired of hearing the same old industry buzzwords. The publishing platitudes are starting to wear a bit thin, and he’s decided to see if he can shake the conversation up a bit by speaking to some of the biggest characters in the business.

On this week’s episode of Big Noises we hear from Mpho Raborife. Mpho is Managing Editor at news24, a South African-based news outlet with a primarily Millennial staff and audience.

Mpho tells us about how she caught the journalism bug while doing work experience, why news organisations that don’t listen to their younger staff members aren’t effectively serving their audiences, and why young people in newsrooms need to know they have a future in the business to remain invested and engaged.

Peter also asked her about her research project for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, and how she hopes younger people will be more nurtured by newsrooms in the future. She echoes what Lucy Keung has said about the need to listen to the younger members of staff – and how those who don’t are leaving societal and commercial opportunities on the table.

A brief highlight of the interview:

On how the pandemic impacting young people in journalism:

We’re not the only one struggling as an industry; every single industry is struggling to find a way to tap into this Gen Z audience because things change. They’re not looking to be serious yet. And so I think there’s a little bit of a breather that we can give ourselves.

They do have big worries on their shoulders; they are starting to study and work in a time that is financially and economically very vulnerable and fragile, and it doesn’t look good for them.

They’re going to be coming into a world where they’re not going to be affording a lot of stuff: the cost of living is affecting everyone. But even then, because the entry level means that they’re earning the very least in the livelihoods, they’re also stressed and anxious. They come from a pandemic, at a very young age. So whether that’s socially or educationally, they’ve just had disruptions that that the previous generations didn’t necessarily go through.


Thanks to Glide Publishing Platform who have sponsored this season of Media Voices: Big Noises. Glide exists to make publishers more successful by removing any need to get bogged down building Content Management Systems, providing an industry-leading SaaS tailored to let publishers do more and spend less. Publishers using Glide direct more resources at their audiences and products, and focus on building things that make them money. You do the content, Glide does the management.

Glide have created 3 expert guides to getting much more from a new or headless CMS, created for editorial, technology, and product teams. You can get the whitepapers here.

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