Have you ever watched the news or read the newspapers and felt you needed to know more than what was being reported? We all feel that way every now and then, especially when big stories break. The media do not report everything because of deadlines, or an oversight.
Take the Oscar Pistorius case. It has had so many media people coming out of the woodwork to cover it as much as possible. Several documentaries are being shown about all things Oscar, outside of the actual shooting. You almost feel inundated by all the information, yet satisfied with the coverage.
However, the Marikana story, which had more casualties, did not receive nearly as much coverage. In fact, it is now one of those stories you find buried somewhere inside the newspaper, not on the front page. Yet there are several stories leading up to the massacre of the Marikana miners and after it that could be told in an informative fashion.
Coming to you to save the day is CheckPoint, eNCA’s new current affairs show that will cover the story behind the story.
Created and presented by the feisty Nkepile Mabuse (pictured), CheckPoint looks set to be the Carte Blanche for the masses.
“We are looking at being the first show in the country that takes time to revisit stories that have been reported upon to try and find out if there are other aspects that can be of public interest that we can touch on,” explained Mabuse.
Shying away from comparing the show to Carte Blanche, Mabuse said she and her team have gone in a different direction altogether.
“The first thing is, we are accessible to the free-to-air market through e.tv, but of importance is the fact that we develop stories that have been reported on in any given week. So we are going to find the top stories of a given week and find new angles of reporting them.
“Say we were covering the Marikana story and have gone past the dreadful shootings happening. CheckPoint will go to the families who have been affected and find out how they are coping,” she said.
Another thing viewers should note is that CheckPoint will not look at hard news stories only, but at anything that makes the news in a particular week.
“We are modelling the idea around the anatomy of a newspaper where you have everything from sports to hard news and so on. In my experience in the media I know people have different ways of approaching the newspapers. Some start with sports, others prefer the hard news first, so with that in mind we are going to make CheckPoint as balanced as possible so that we cater for a varied audience,” she said.
• CheckPoint premieres tomorrow at 8.30pm on eNCA (DStv channel 403) and in the UK on Sky (channel 517).