16 October 2025

“How do we tell stories that are able to motivate change?” asks Sbu Ngwala, editor-in-chief of the recently launched non-profit media initiative, Our City News.

Amid broken service delivery and too-frequent failures of governance in Johannesburg, Our City News has begun covering the issues that matter most to Joburgers. Since publishing its first stories in September 2025, its journalists have dug into everything from the state of the city’s swimming pools to faulty electricity meters and the housing crisis in Alexandra. 

What is the problem?

In the past, local newspapers could pay journalists to widely cover a range of beats, from municipal-level politics to community issues. But local journalism in South Africa has been eroded by the decline of print media and the low returns of advertising. Over the last fifteen years, 70% of the country’s journalism jobs have been lost.   

The shrinking workforce for local media impacts a range of city-level issues in Johannesburg and other metros and towns across the country.  When local journalism is weakened, “you see a rise in corruption because politicians become brazen, they are emboldened,” argues Ngwala. “No one is looking, no one is paying attention because we are so stretched as an industry,” he says.  

How are they fixing it?

In response to the need to have more journalists on the ground to better report on issues in Johannesburg, the Henry Nxumalo Foundation, an organisation that provides funding and support to investigative journalists, set up Our City News. The initiative is a nonprofit, donor-funded newsroom focused on quality, hyperlocal stories about Johannesburg. 

With an initial six-month trial period, Our City News supports a team of experienced journalists to write in-depth local stories, which will reach audiences through publication in national newspapers, like Media24, Sunday Times, Daily Maverick and GroundUp.  

By creating “news you can use”, Our City News aims to both enable Johannesburg’s residents with the knowledge they need to hold city authorities to account and hear from other residents about this “city that they love, or sometimes they hate, but this city that is their own,” says Ngwala. 

What makes it work?

High-quality issue-based reporting

"We don't go after the run-of-the-mill, ubiquitous press conferences… we are interested in adding value to newsrooms," says Ngawala. For instance, when the Johannesburg City Library reopened, the reporters at Our City News did a deep dive into issues related to literacy and the state of smaller libraries across the city. Their reporting found many of those in poorer areas have been closed for years. They ran a similar feature on the state of the city’s public swimming pools. 

Reporting across generations 

Our City News pairs experienced writers, many of them from a print journalism background, with 20 young media graduates who are being mentored to tell the city’s stories through video journalism. This aspect of Our City News is called “Joburg Speaks” and is aimed at spotlighting the city from the diverse perspective of its ordinary residents. 

“Cross-pollination” 

Our City News partners with data journalism platform Outlier to tell the city’s stories through numbers, highlighting figures like the number of burst pipes in the city and capacity of local landfills. The organisation also features stories and resources from fixlocal, as part of holding local government in Joburg to account and connects readers to Johannesburg in Your Pocket to get engaged with local happenings. 

Looking to the future 

“Hopefully, at some point, we will get to replicate this in other metros and other municipalities, but Johannesburg is the perfect one to start, it being a home to all of these millions of people who come from all these walks of life,” says Ngwala.

Acknowledgements

Author: Maru Attwood 

Photo: Bertrand van der Berg via Wikimedia commons