When we train journalists we give them the tools to understand this ‘axis of human striving’ and to understand their role in the creation of an ‘ethical society’.
Each month The Journalist will feature Mini Master Classes and articles in The Craft section. These online tutorials and opinion pieces are based on the experiences of renowned Journalists.
If you have ideas for topics you would like to see in The Craft section or need help with an area of Journalism, let us know. The Journalist has a team whose combined experiences cover digital media, print, broadcast and filmmaking. But ultimately we are seasoned Storytellers who would like to ensure that the next generation of media men and women do the South African story justice. Anything less is a human rights violation.
Foundation for continent wide media and academic platform
All roads led to the University of Ghana in Accra in the first week of November 2018. Academics from across the continent and beyond in the communication, media and journalism disciplines gathered at the country’s oldest campus to forge greater cooperation and research capacity.
Women might be more at risk of threats to their safety
Journalism continues to top the list of “most dangerous” professions in the world. Whether actively covering conflicts or not, journalists face threats of death or bodily harm, intimidation, arrests and jailing. Even in non-conflict situations, they face travel restrictions, defamation suits, tax investigations, censorship…
Platforms are at the coalface of change
New technology, or rather more specifically, digitalisation is likely to disrupt Africa’s community media model, and possibly give it a new lease on life. In fact, the increased use of the mobile phone in Africa as a media device, has the power to boost the continent’s community media and community journalism.
The age-old debate between the relative value of theory and practice is finally broken
How do we combat fake news, the grooming of journalists by sources less than credible and how do we grow and maybe even restore the public’s trust in journalism? These are questions that are foremost on the minds of the media profession as well as the public’s as we commemorated Black Wednesday this October.
Highly contested environment and prevalence of fake news
A report by the Media Institute of South Africa notes that the country has a high prevalence of fake news especially in social media and there exists a “heavy stench of corruption”. This situation is worsened by the fact that the South Africa is grappling with the consequences of state capture, looting of state resources by politically connected individuals…
Sexist and patriarchal structures continue to hold women back
This month as we commemorate Black Wednesday and take stock of media freedom in democratic South Africa, special attention is paid to women in the news media. Despite inroads made in gender and racial equity in the news media in the last decade, the 2018 Glass ceiling report on women in the South African news media shows that female journalists…
The idea and ideal of objectivity has almost become a dirty word in journalism
In the last couple of months I have had the great pleasure to interact with journalists from around the continent through a range of conferences and workshops. This has given me an opportunity to reflect on some of the challenges currently facing journalism worldwide, but also in the particular context of the African continent.Challenges that at once cannot be divorced from global trends and forces currently facing journalism worldwide.
Peace journalism has also been criticised for being too philosophical and idealistic
Several countries in Africa, including Zimbabwe, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon, hold crucial elections this year. Some of the polls are likely to be marked by protests as well as clampdowns on dissenting voices as well as the news media and internet access. All this amid the spread of fake news.It’s important to consider the role of the media in this heady mix.
That the craft of journalism is changing almost daily and traditional media has experienced unprecedented digital disruption is a statement of fact. Researchers are calling for South African journalists to take part in a survey that tracks journalists who have left the newsroom for freelance work, academia, PR and government communications. The subsequent rate of attrition of journalists losing their jobs across the globe is staggering. Sub-editors are becoming extinct, and subs desks...
What is the role of journalism in media, conflict and peace-building? This was the question raised at a two day workshop at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Windhoek last weekend. However, while the role of the news media in reporting on conflict as well as efforts to ameliorate the same, what came to be the main focus of discussions was the freedom of SADC journalist and impediments to reporting in political and cultural contexts that range from liberal democracy to...
Currently, the humanities are undergoing massive shifts, which both influence, and are influenced by, the broader field of media and communications. The media and communications discipline itself is also changing rapidly with it its many cogent as well as sub-disciplines. These include (but are not limited to) journalism, development communication, health communication, public relations, marketing communication and strategic communications, and those to do with film and television studies. Of...
The craft of the future is investigative, in-depth and empathetic
What is the role of journalism in the ever changing digital and social media environment? How will the fourth industrial revolution change journalism? And can journalism survive? These are questions raised again and again and while they are not necessarily new to the discourse and debate around journalism as the craft has always evolved and changed with the times, there are turning points in time…
Media freedom and democracy go hand in hand
In March, the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Media Monitoring Africa and the Oslo Freedom Forum hosted a panel discussion and dialogue named “Media Under Fire”. The dialogue was part of ongoing work to engage with the media in South Africa. The event sought to explore new threats posed to the media, as well how journalists begin to self-censor when they find themselves under threat.
Mozambican journalist “silenced” with violence
A veteran Mozambican journalist, critical of President Filipe Nyusi and his government, was abducted and assaulted earlier this year. On 29 March journalist and lawyer Ericino de Salema was kidnapped in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, beaten and left unconscious. Salema was critical of the president’s alleged corruption.
Plurality of media is key to democracy
Everyone needs press freedom to be able to publish their news and views to an audience. Gone are the days when political and religious authorities kept this freedom only for themselves. The right to press freedom was a hard-won right historically – against kings, emperors, colonialists and apartheid’s bullies. It unfolded unevenly over history, in different places.
The rhetorical cries of ‘never again’ ring ever more hollow
In the Western mindset, as demonstrated by the near-unanimity of opinion from Western journalists in their discussions of Rwanda, the genocide in 1994 was simply the latest outburst of violence in a continent which had become synonymous with various crimes against humanity and mass suffering.Next month, it will be 24 years since the Rwandan genocide – one of the swiftest and most destructive…
The city can survive it, if the narrative is productive
Lesley Green is an associate professor of Anthropology in the School of African and Gender Studies, Anthropology and Linguistics at the University of Cape Town. She received an email from a journalist recently asking for comment on the Cape water crisis. The email was titled “Will Cape Town survive the deadliest water crisis?” This is her response.Thanks for writing. I worry about your email headline though: this is not “the deadliest”…
The “radical” resolutions which have hogged print and broadcast headlines.
When media cover a political party conference decision, it is best to report on the entire resolution, not just the exciting bits. This may reduce the audience but will improve accuracy. The point seems to have been forgotten in reporting on a resolution on land expropriation passed at the December conference of South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress.
Corporate logics are colonising media and digital platforms.
Every day, much of humanity now holds in its hands the means to connect and be connected across the world: to family, entertainment and the broadcasts of corporations, states and, increasingly, terrorist organisations such as Islamic State. This connected world has major implications for social progress and global justice, but so too do the media and information infrastructures on which that world depends.
The battle for media freedom isn’t over
Four decades after the Black Wednesday crackdown on the media and the Black Consciousness Movement, South Africa is a different country. Freedom of expression is guaranteed in the constitution and a slew of institutions and laws support the guarantee. At the same time, powerful groups continue to seek ways to limit and undermine journalism.On October 19, 1977, two South African newspapers – World and Weekend World – and a church journal – Pro Veritate – were closed…
Women in politics is contaminated by hegemonic masculinity
Most politicians often face the glare of news media, but for women in or seeking positions of political power, the scrutiny by the media can be quite contemptuous. This is a fact that has not changed much over the years, despite women constituting a powerful force in politics and at all levels of government. And yet somehow, there is a continuum of denial that exists in society that women’s…
News snuck in under tables, hidden in porridge and in repaired shoes
As we celebrate media freedom this year, I am reminded of the many years we spent on Robben Island where there was a total news blackout. It was the 1960s, and the prison authorities in what was arguably one of the worst penal colonies in the world, very deliberately suppressed any news getting to us as political prisoners. Sunny Singh, Robben Island Prisoner No. 67/6 recalls his time as a political prisoner.
“Globalisation is being badly managed”
Globalisation was once promoted as the solution to the world’s problems. But increasingly we’re seeing it has bad effects as well as good ones. So is there a way to make it work for all countries, continents — and the planet? Professor Ian Goldin of Oxford pondered the problem at a Stellenbosch University seminar. MICHELLE GALLOWAY reports.“We live in a world that is hyper-connected – our future is shaped by events that happen elsewhere.
Worry about ethics to safeguard credibility
South Africans have been gripped by stories gleaned from the biggest data dump in the country – between 100,000 and 200,000 emails leaked by an anonymous source to journalists. The emails, locally referred to as the “Gupta leaks”, reveal how the Gupta family has done business in the country, as well as their engagements with the government and politicians. The family, and its associates, are accused of buying favour, as well as state tenders and deals…
The Journalist is a ground-breaking media project that provides history and context for key issues facing South African journalists. The Journalist is an independent, not for profit organisation working with the academic community and a range of credible online entities to make knowledge more accessible to the wider public. We don’t only tell you what happened. We help you understand why.
We want our stories spread far and wide. Feel free to republish our articles, but please credit our writers and authors and credit The Journalist at the top or bottom of the article complete with a hyperlink back to the site.
The Journalist is a non-profit organisation and relies on public funding. Please consider donating to ensure more issues in the future.
Account name: The Journalist / Bank: Standard Bank
Branch Code: 026209 / Account number: 270320830
