The Department of Communications and Highway Africa hosted an Information and Communications Technology Journalism Workshop at the university last week.
The Department of Communications and Highway Africa hosted an Information and Communications Technology Journalism Workshop at the university last week.
The week-long workshop with the theme "Using New Media Tools in Journalism and Communication" saw 16 participants being drawn from various parts of the Southern African Development Community. The Department of Communications (DoC) donated a grant to support the participants’ travel and accommodation expenses.
The participants did not only have to have an appreciation for digital media, but also expressed their desire to train others in the home countries. Some are reporters in all types of media including online, while others are journalism lecturers and communications officers. They came from countries such as Benin, Cameroon, Kenya, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Cote d’Ivoire.
Pakama Majila said she found the workshop very enlightening because she had never worked with new media tools before. "However, there’s a concern I have maintained throughout the workhop that the new media will jeopardise good journalism, some reporters will publish stories based on Twits and with no substantial facts," she added.
The objectives of the training workshop were to entrench a deeper appreciation of the role of digital technologies in journalism and communication in Africa and to give the participants new media skills that they will be able to use in their work and a willingness to impart this training in their work.
The overall facilitation of the course was done by Prof Peter Verweij, a senior lecturer at the School of Journalism at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
Highway Africa’s Moagisi Letlhaku, who co-ordinated the workshop, said she was happy that participants were young people because they are likely to transfer the skills they acquired from the workshop to their colleagues. "Young people are interested in technology as they use it in their personal lives, and now they were trained to use it in their work," she added.
She expressed her gratitude to the DoC for their donation and "committing to be part of skilling our journalists". The programme covered topics that are relevant to today’s changing media landscape, such as the digital revolution and the changes it has brought about, search strategies and Internet hunting, and using multimedia and mobile tools for reporting.
