A warm welcome to you TUT journalism students. You come to pay us a visit at a time that we are celebrating heritage month. The theme for this year is "Celebrating 20 years of democracy: Tell your story that moves South Africa forward”. I hope that you will not wait until you graduate to tell your stories.

When I was a year or two younger than you are now, I wanted to study journalism, because I was already contributing stories to a newspaper. I wanted to study at TUT (then Pretoria Technikon) but by some design of fate I couldn't be accepted. But I am happy that more and more of you are taking up this very valuable profession.

After speaking about what we do in the Presidency, I would also want to talk about what are some of the challenges that you will be confronted with whilst you join the world of journalism.

The administrative office of the Presidency is at the Union Buildings, Pretoria. The Parliamentary support office is here at Tuynhuys. The Presidency as an institution was created in 1999 when former President Thabo Mbeki assumed office as a platform for administration for the Presidency to ensure that things run smoothly.

This was a move away from what former President Nelson Mandela had, which was Nelson Mandela as the President and Thabo Mbeki together with FW De Klerk as Deputy Presidents.

As it is now President Zuma is the President and Cyril Ramaphosa is the Deputy President. Now they don't run that institution on their own, there are other political Principals in the Presidency. It is the Minister responsible for planning, monitoring and evaluation as well as youth and administration that is Minister Jeff Radebe. I am the Deputy Minister to Minister Radebe.

There is also Minister for Women, Minister Susan Shabangu. Those are the five political Principals in the Presidency.

The administration is led by the Director-General: Dr. Cassius Lubisi then it is divided into the different support for the various offices. Then there are advisors to political principals, yes the President gets advice, whether legal, political, economic so that they are able to execute their responsibilities with ease.

Beyond the political advisors the President and Deputy President have Parliamentary Councilors advising them on Parliamentary matters.

That is the political structure in the Presidency. The office of the President also assists him administratively. If you would like to meet with the President, you would write to the President. Imagine if the President was to respond to all the letters that were sent to him e.g. students from TUT want to meet with him, there is a strike at TUT and the students would like him to intervene and so on and so forth.

It would be humanly impossible for the President to single-handedly respond to all that correspondence addressed to him. So the office of the president would have personnel who deal with recording all that so that all those letters are responded to.

Then the person who will communicate to most if not all of you - I suppose you are not all going to be either behind the desk of the microphone, you probably have other dreams and aspirations when you qualify. The person who interfaces with the media is the spokesperson for the President, Mac Maharaj, we all know Uncle Mac, right?

That is the Person who speaks on behalf of the President and communicates to the public on whatever decision the President has taken.

That is the support structure of the Presidency. There are a whole range of people who support the President and the Deputy President in the execution of their responsibilities.

The role of the Deputy Minister is that of youth as well as the administration of the Presidency, remember there is a Minister for women and I am responsible for youth and the administration.

Part of that responsibility is to ensure that the Presidency runs smoothly with the support of the Director-General as well as the Chief Operations Officer and various Deputy Directors general in the Presidency.

From time to time we get to meet and discuss matters. Some are International agreements, legal issues, when to sign a bill into an act etc.

Part of the portfolio I am responsible for with Minister Jeff Radebe is that of planning, monitoring and evaluation.

You have all heard of the National Development plan?

If you are going to pursue a career in political, maybe economic reporting on anything that has to do with society or government, part of what you should familiarise yourself with is the National Development Plan. It was generated by the National Planning Commission and has now been made government policy.

Every five years we develop in our department what we call a Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF), that is a five year plan to breakdown this huge elephant called the National Development Plan into five year plans. Then we monitor that and its implementation by the government departments.

We have identified fourteen outcomes of the National Development Plan and those outcomes are then broken down so that each and every government department, ministry and every sphere of government implements the National Development Plan so that we achieve the objectives that have been set for 2010.

Essentially that is what the Ministry is all about. Over and above that, the President heads Presidential Commissions, one such is the Infrastructure Coordinating Commission which is more about strategic infrastructure programmes i.e. building of roads, dams, schools etc.

The other commission which the President has asked Minister Jeff Radebe to chair is the inter-ministerial committee of revitalisation of mining communities after the Marikana tragedy.

Then there is Cabinet that is the executive structure that makes decisions about our country. Cabinet takes decisions in relation to that. In Provinces it is the Executive Council led by the Premier and the various MEC's.

Cabinet is broken down into cabinet committees, clusters and those committees and clusters are supported by what we call the Cabinet support office in the Presidency.

Essentially that is the Presidency and that is what happens on a daily basis at the Presidency.

I think that one of the most important platforms that the Presidency will always rely on is not only government communicators, but also you as future journalists who will be writing the stories, telling the stories, communicating the stories behind the screen, online and everywhere where we will have access to the stories.

The most important thing which we should always remember is that we are living in a democracy, where the freedom of speech of every citizen is guaranteed. We are living in a society where freedom of association is also guaranteed.

It will be your role to make sure that you protect and defend those basic freedoms. It is nobody else's responsibility but that of a journalist, something which I refer to as progressive journalism.

We have just reburied one of the most prolific journalists, Nat Nakasa a week ago. You yourself are studying at an institution which has a history of producing prolific and progressive journalists and I hope you continue with that legacy.

Percy Qoboza for example is one of the most renowned journalists of his time, but even outside of your institution we have some of the most celebrated journalists like Bloke Modisane, Can Themba etc. People whose stories are still lingering on such as Henry Nxumalo who we still remember for the contributions they have made.

We remember them for human stories, stories that changed society. Today when you read them they do not sound as though they were real stories. Stories that have been turned into plays, I don't know if you have read "The Suit” which I think is one of the grandest piece of journalism.

Your contribution when you get out there - I challenge you - should not only be about what is happening in the immediate. Our media is obviously divided into different categories and without undermining any of those categories i.e. tabloids, financial news, showbiz etc., but every piece should be accompanied by intellectual detail, by intellectual effort and you must illustrate that your role is to try and take our country forward.

Those are some of the things that you would be confronted with in the real world of journalism. One of the most baffling things about mainstream journalism is the fact that if you read a story for example journalists get into a press briefing, take questions and interactions - then they write the story tomorrow they almost look exactly the same.

Surely stories should differ in one way or another; there would have been something different, something that stood out for you. For all of you to just identify one angle is what I would characterize as lazy journalism. Share notes on what should make the bigger story instead of allowing yourself to walk away and develop and carve an identity for yourself.

You will definitely not be the journalist we remember if we find your story can be found written in the same way as it is written in the Daily Sun, City Press, Sowetan. So I challenge you to go out there and be different journalists, be a journalist who can help to take South Africa forward.

I'm not saying you should be meek, I'm not saying you should be timid, I'm not saying you should be afraid of speaking truth to power. Speaking truth to power means that we should be unearthing those issues that really affect the dreams, needs and aspirations of our people.

All the best and I hope you enjoy Cape Town and whatever is remaining of it.

Thank you.

Issued by: The Presidency