SEMINAR ON EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN JOURNALISM AND COMMUNICATION IN MOZAMBIQUE

MAPUTO, 17-18 MAY 2001

FINAL REPORT

DRAWN UP FOR THE MEDIA DEVELOPMENT IN MOZAMBIQUE PROJECT

BY EDUARDO NAMBURETE AND TOMAS VIEIRA MARIO

MAPUTO, MAY 2001

Foreword

Journalism and communication education still represents a relatively new field of study in Mozambique as well as in Africa in general. In the case of Mozambique this can be explained in the Portuguese colonization of the country.

A first effort to create conditions to educate journalists in the country both academically and vocationally started in the late seventies with short-term courses to upgrade the skills of already working journalists, however often with a very limited educational background of less than nine years of school.

In the development process of these short-term training courses, a project to create a School of Journalism took shape, and once formally established, functioned under the Ministry of Information, which was abolished in 1991 when the Media Law was passed.

Over the years and in the middle of harsh difficulties and with no formal statutes and official curriculum until 1990, the school educated though generations of journalists some of whom presently with the most influential positions in the country’s newspapers, radio stations and TV.

In the 80es the school came to be the School of Journalism for all the five Portuguese-speaking PALOP countries in Africa (Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Cap Verde and Sao Tomé and Príncipe) as well as East Timor.

In spite of weaknesses it is as such important to consider the experience available in the country for the needed revision of the curriculum as well as improvement of facilities and required equipment for the institution.

At the same time, education in the area of journalism and communication at university level is very recent : only in 2001the private “Instituto Politécnico Superior e Universitário”, ISPU, graduated its first students of Communication.

Furthermore the faculty of education in Nampula at the Catholic University of Mozambique has recently started a bachelor-degree study in Communication and the Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, the only public university in Mozambique, is in an advanced stage of preparation for the establishment of a School of Communication and Art.

All in all, this experience will definitely strengthen a dynamic and powerful Mozambican media, confronting the challenges and needs of society and benefiting from the great advances in exactly the area of information technology and communication.

The UNESCO/UNDP Media Development Project is honoured to have been requested to take part in a series of reflections with the different partners directly or indirectly interested and involved in this area. And it is with an extended sense of responsibility that we hope the present report will assist the relevant and interested parties to formulate adequate strategies for education and training of journalism and communication professionals that will meet the needs of the media sector in the country.

Let us end by stressing that the opinions expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect official UNESCO policies.

Maputo, May 2001

Birgitte Jallov Tomás Vieira MárioChief Technical Adviser National Project CoordinatorI - INTRODUCTION

Immediate Objective 7 of the UNESCO/UNDP project for the Development of the Media in Mozambique determines the holding of a "National Seminar on the Policy and Strategy of Journalism Training in Mozambique". In compliance with this objective, a seminar entitled "Education and Training in Journalism and Communication in Mozambique" was held on 17-18 May 2001 in Maputo. In line with the objectives originally defined by the project document, the central purpose of the seminar was to discuss and produce recommendations on a long term strategy, above all for the development of human and technical resources in the sphere of the education and technical-professional training of journalists in the country, through curriculum reforms, restructuring and institutional strengthening of the education bodies, and technical-professional training in this area. Among the indispensable requirements for attaining this goal are the discussion and formulation of policies and plans for the training and systematic upgrading of educators and trainers, the development of curricula that respond to the needs of the media industry, in light of the new national scenario, characterised by diversity, pluralism and independence of the national mass media, as well as the corresponding needs of the same institutions in terms of infrastructures and adequate equipment.

The seminar was officially opened by the Minister of Education, Dr Alcido Ngwenha, who was welcomed by the Deputy Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Maputo, Dr Svend Madsen.

II - OBJECTIVE

The main objective of this seminar was to undertake a comparative assessment, as exhaustively as possible, of the human resource needs of the media industry (in terms of adequate academic and professional training) on the one hand, and on the other the capacity of the training institutes to satisfy these same market needs. Reference points for analysis were:

1. The curricular programmes;

2. The level and areas of training and specialisation of the teachers and technical trainers; and3. The capacity and appropriateness of the infrastructures and equipment available in the various relevant educational establishments and technical and professional training centres.

Additionally, and in a concrete and practical manner, the seminar also discussed:

1. Different models of journalism teaching that might be adopted in Mozambique;2. The new role of the Journalism School in the current context of media pluralism and independence;3. The exchange of synergies between the various institutions of academic and professional training in the country and in the region; and4. The role of cooperation partners in journalism training.

During two days, the discussions around these themes took contributions from a group of about sixty participants, including editorial directors, editors and managers of the various media, educators and trainers in journalism and communication, and also representatives of training institutions invited from the SADC region, as well as representatives from the government bodies that supervise the sector, namely the government Press Office (Gabinfo).

III - METHODOLOGY

The seminar was organised into four panels on specific themes, a group discussion session, and a final plenary session.

The starting point of the seminar was the presentation of the main findings and recommendations of the "Study on Education and Training in Journalism and Communication", requested from two specialists by the UNESCO/UNDP Media Project in December 2000. The study identifies the needs of the mass media in terms of human resources adequately trained to respond to the challenges of a modern and active journalism. At the same time, it presents the level of response offered to the media industry by the country's existing training institutions. Three institutions for the education and training of journalists were the main targets of this study, namely:* the Journalism School;* the Higher Polytechnic and University Institute (ISPU); and* the Catholic University (Bachelor's Degree in Communication at the Education Faculty in Nampula).

This summary was presented by Eduardo Namburete, of Maputo's Eduardo Mondlane University, a member of the team that undertook the study, under the leadership of Professor Matt Mogekwo, of the North West University, Mmabatho, South Africa.

The findings of the study were the basis for a first session of discussions around the state of the teaching of communication and journalism in Mozambique, which was an initial opportunity for the participants to advance strategic lines for reforms of the sector. Particular stress was immediately laid on the Journalism School, which is potentially the main supplier of editorial staff for the media industry in Mozambique - and the only public journalism training institution.

1. THEMATIC PANELS

Following this first plenary debate, discussions took place around more specific matters, through the following four panels:

The first thematic panel, formed by editors and editorial directors from the various mass media, considered the problematic of the needs of media companies in comparison with the training offered by the communications training institutes.

The second thematic panel was led by academics not directly involved in teaching or practicing journalism, and it was intended to provide a critical assessment of the state of journalism in Mozambique from an academic perspective.

The third panel presented a regional perspective on journalism training in southern Africa - possibilities and challenges.

Finally, on the second day of the seminar, the fourth panel discussed a menu of possible models for education and professional training in journalism at the tertiary level.

2. THEMATIC GROUPS

The presentations and discussions held up to the end of the morning of the second day were taken further in smaller sessions of four thematic groups which each concentrated on the following specific topics:

1. Possible models for journalism training at tertiary level;2. New role of the Journalism School and curriculum development;3. Synergies and interconnections between national and regional

training institutions and the Journalism School; and4. The role of cooperation partners in journalism training.

After the discussions in working groups, there followed in the afternoon the presentation of the conclusions and proposed recommendations, which were then discussed in plenary sessions at the end of the seminar.

IV GENERAL ASSESSMENT OF THE DISCUSSIONS

In his speech opening the seminar, the Minister of Education mentioned two crucial aspects, directly related to the meeting and relevant to its objectives. He officially transmitted the information that "currently a study is under way on the transformation of the Journalism School into a higher institute for training in mass communication", and at the same time he expressed the hope that the seminar would produce "important recommendations to help the government define its responsibilities in the training of media professionals".

This openness of the government encouraged open discussions, around very concrete questions which characterise the sector currently, initially in the light of the "Study on Education and Training in Journalism and Communications", the main findings of which indicate the following:

1. Poor level of journalism practiced in the country;2. The curricula of the new institutions for teaching and training in journalism and communication are regarded as inadequate, and it is urgent that they should be reshaped;3. Lack of teachers with adequate academic and technical-professional training, in line with the growing demands of the media industry;4. Inadequate infrastructures and lack of appropriate equipment, libraries and other facilities necessary for training in journalism;5. The Journalism School, the largest and oldest journalism training institution in the country, is inadequate, both in terms of its curriculum and its staff, particularly teachers, and its premises and equipment. It needs serious and urgent restructuring;6. The subordination of the Journalism School to the government press office (GABINFO) is an important constraint on its development.

From these findings of the study, the participants focused on the following points in particular:

1. They recognised that the sombre picture of the state of journalism education painted by the study is real, but should not be understood as something exceptional to Mozambique, since there are similar scenarios in many African countries. The central point to be considered is how to overcome the present defective training of journalists in the country.

2. They stressed the poor technical-professional preparation of

students trained at the Journalism School, due to curricular programmes that are out of line with the profession.

3. They noted in particular that there is no training of the students in connection with the new communication and information technologies.

4. Various scenarios were advanced, in terms of a possible model for the Journalism School, in order to provide it with a more appropriate institutional framework, and greater and more efficient professionalisation of its students. Below are listed the possibilities that were most discussed:

a) Direct tutelage by the Ministry of Education, as is the case with the mid-level Technical-Professional Institutes (namely the Industrial and Commercial Institutes);b) Its transformation into an autonomous polytechnic institute;c) Its tutelage by, or integration into, the Eduardo Mondlane University (public university).

5. Of these possible models, the first two attracted the greatest attention from the participants, since they correspond to the model for a Mid-Level Technical Staff Training School, identified by the media industry as most in line with its needs.

6. They stressed the need for journalists' training institutions in general, and the Journalism School in particular, to establish institutional and systematic ties with the managers of the companies of the sector, editorial directors and editors, involving them consistently in discussing and defining the curricular programmes and similar requirements;

7. Approximation between the Journalism School and the media sector would also help create among the students greater interest in the profession since, according to the participants, what currently happens is that those who graduate from the Journalism School do not take up a career in journalism - instead they use the school as a springboard for entering various university courses. This situation tends to perpetuate the shortage of qualified journalists in the country.

8. The new (private) institutions that give courses in communication and journalism should also design and shape their curricular programmes taking into account the real needs of the communication industry, with which they should interact in a systematic and consistent manner.

9. In particular, the curricular programmes should try to be in line as much as possible with the socio-cultural and also the economic realities of the country, in order to produce communication professionals capable of interpreting with due sharpness and rigour the reality that surrounds them.

In addition, the following reflections were made:

As for the lack of interest among students in following a career in journalism, it was suggested that the introduction of subjects linked to communication be considered for primary classes, so that pupils would be given the chance to understand the importance of the media in the country's development at this initial stage of their education.

The participants also expressed strong doubts about the academic level demanded for entering the Journalism School, which is currently 10th grade. There was a strong tendency arguing that the entry qualification should be 12th grade.

The editors insistently demanded a training system for the students more oriented towards professionalisation, particularly through greater exposure to the newsrooms of the mass media, for more direct contact with their future professional environment and labour market.

The institutional framework for the Journalism School was one of the matters that sparked off lively debates among the participants who thought that the current tutelage arrangement is a major weak point for the school's development. On this aspect, the participants recommended several alternatives for the most effective tutelage for the school, as mentioned earlier.

The intention of transforming the Journalism School into a higher education institution, announced by the Minister of Education in his opening speech was also considered.

One of the arguments presented by the management of the Journalism School for the project of transforming it into a higher institute of mass media training is that this would be an appropriate strategy so that the institution could benefit from more robust financial support, coming from inside and outside the country. This explanation was greeted with strong reservations by the seminar participants, who thought it insufficient support for a decision with such major strategic consequences for the development of the mass media in Mozambique.

On this question, the participants made the following suggestions:

1. That the Journalism School should continue to provide mid-level courses to satisfy the needs of the sector in terms of professionals for the communications industry;

2. That the Journalism School should develop in the direction of training journalists at the level of a bachelor's degree.

3. That the Journalism School should introduce the diploma.

APPENDICES: GROUP 1

PANEL IPANEL IIPANEL IIIPANEL IV

PANEL 1

NEEDS OF THE MEDIA COMPANIES VIS-A-VIS THE TRAINING OFFERED BY THE COMMUNICATIONS TRAINING INSTITUTIONS

The needs of the media companies versus the training offered by the communications training institutions were discussed in a session with a panel of the following composition:

1. Antonio Gumende, Chairman of "MediaCoop" and Executive Editor of SARDC-Maputo;2. Leandro Paul, owner and editor of the weekly "Fim-de-Semana";3. Leonel Matias, director of information of Radio Mozambique;4. Salomao Moyana, editor of the weekly "Savana";5. Simao Anguilaze, news director of Mozambique Television.

Leandro Paul stressed the need for journalists undergoing training at the Journalism School to learn the basics of using computers and handling the Internet. These subjects, although they are included on the Journalism School curriculum, have not been taught to the students, because the school does not possess computers.

The lack of specialisation in Mozambican journalism was indicated as a great disadvantage in how the media operate, and there were suggestions that the Journalism School should design specific, specialist training modules for professionals already working "on the ground".

Leonel Matias laid particular stress on Radio Mozambique's experience in its relationship with the Journalism School, particularly regarding the internships for students from the school. He said that, in contacts with "dozens of students" from the school over the years, defects were noted that revealed random recruitment, lack of motivation or of interest in journalism, and poor basic academic training. As for the organisation of the internships themselves, Matias suggested that they be longer, and should start earlier, unlike the present practice, in which they only take place in the last semester of the course.

Simao Anguilaze, one of the senior Mozambican journalists who received his basic training at the Journalism School, said that many other journalists at Mozambique Television had, like him, undergone their basic training at the school, but in a different historical context and with another curriculum. Currently, his experience shows that the system of three month internships that the students undertake at TVM is ineffective, in that they start the apprenticeship practically with no technical mastery of their

future profession. According to Anguilaze, there is a great mismatch between what the interns bring from the School and what they are expected to be able to show in their workplace. This means that, in the internship periods, in the final months of the course, they still need to learn "the most elementary things" of the profession.

The importance of the Journalism School was, however, stressed by the editor of "Savana", Salomao Moyana, who thought it important in the training of journalists in Mozambique, Moyana recalled that since 1991 public discussions have been organised about what the School should produce, but when looking at the results of the study into journalism and communications teaching and training, one notes that the same problems of ten or more years ago still persist. From what he knew of the school's finalists, Moyana stated that many of them end the course without knowing how to write correctly in Portuguese. Moyana also stressed that it would be entirely desirable for students of the Journalism School to end their training with a good mastery of English, since this would facilitate their future professional upgrading on specialist courses in the southern African region.

As for the project of transforming the Journalism School into a higher education institution, the editor of "Savana" thought that the school should keep its mid-level status, and let the universities take care of higher level training. In Moyana's opinion, what the school needs is to be equipped with the financial, material and human resources able to provide it with the necessary conditions to train the kind of journalists the country needs.

PANEL II

THE STATE OF JOURNALISM IN MOZAMBIQUE: A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT FROM AN ACADEMIC PERSPECTIVE

The debates around this theme were encouraged by a panel consisting of the following:

1. Antonio Carrasco, general director of the Mass Communications Institute (ICS);2. Hilario Matusse, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists (SNJ);3. Firmino Mucavele, director and lecturer at the UEM Economics Faculty;4. Obede Baloi, director and lecturer at the UEM Social Science Faculty (UFICS).

Obede Baloi was the main speaker, and he made a critical assessment, from an academic perspective, of the state of journalism in Mozambique. Baloi's reflections were based on an analysis of the journalistic information transmitted by the press, assessing the variables related with the weakness of the professional quality in the journalism. According to him, the likely cause is fundamentally the poor basic preparation (in their specialism) of the professionals. A further cause leading to the poor professional quality of journalism is concerned with the bad general academic training of the journalists. He cited the example of a journalistic piece broadcast by Radio Mozambique on 15 April in which it was said that "Christians and Catholics are celebrating Easter", and in the development of the news item no further mention was made of who is celebrating Easter. For Baloi, the journalist was limited to his restricted knowledge to construct the news item, and this shows poor training in terms of general knowledge.

The almost complete lack of a journalism of precision among Mozambican media professionals, and the abusive use of anonymous sources, were further aspects indicated by the assessment of the state of journalism in Mozambique. The speaker said the use of anonymous sources in Mozambican journalism was symptomatic, citing the article published on the back page of the weekly paper "Domingo", in its issue of 1 April 2001, concerning an alleged detention by the South African police of Nhimpine Chissano, son of the President of the Republic. According to Baloi understanding the facts outlined in this story "was clouded because it was scarcely possible to identify the sources". A further problem concerning sources in Mozambican journalism is the resort to

expressions such as "according to sources close to us, according to reliable sources, as we knew from sources linked to ..." According to the speaker, these expressions are obscure and weaken the reliability of the information it is intended to give.

The fact that Mozambican journalism is still relatively weak technically was recognised by the general secretary of the Journalists' Union, Hilario Matusse, who related it to the poor quality of the journalists' general training. He recognised that the question of "anonymous sources" may be the result of difficulties in access to sources of information, particularly in the state, which causes great limitations on the exercise of journalism.

This question of access to sources was approached as an expression, in the journalism area, of a still greater problem: the lack of a culture of information, which runs through all of society, from the so-called political class to the academic area, where the cult of secrecy is still very strong.

Another panel member, Antonio Carrasco, added to the problems of poor basic training or even lack of general knowledge, the financial difficulties facing the media, which greatly limit the ability to carry out works of major journalistic investigation.

This panel also noted that the appearance in the country of a so-called "savage capitalism" has also greatly affected the performance of the mass media, particularly as regards ethics, with the publication of what are supposed to be pieces of journalism, but which may incite political violence, in exchange for sums of money. This fact was viewed as a great obstacle to the growth and recognition of quality, credible journalism.

PANEL III

A REGIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON JOURNALISM TRAINING IN SOUTHERN AFRICA: POSSIBILITIES AND CHALLENGES

For an overall vision of the models, trends and strategies followed in southern Africa in the training of journalists, a panel was set up consisting of specialists, from both the sub-component of technical-professional upgrading, and from the academic sub-component. The panel consisted of the following invitees:

1. John Mukela, executive director of the NSJ Trust;2. Hugh McCallum, researcher at SARDC, Harare;3. Keyan Tomasseli, from the University of Natal;4. Gil Lauriciano, researcher and lecturer at ISRI, Maputo.

The speakers gave their readings of journalism and its development in the region, focusing on the major challenges currently posed to media professionals, namely: the relationship between content and technical level, from the viewpoint of journalistic research capacity, as well as the unavoidable question of access to, and mastery of, the new information and communication technologies.

According to Hugh McCullum, the problem of the quality of journalism in southern Africa cannot be analysed only from the point of view of the inadequacy - in number and in quality - of the training institutions, but above all from the great lack of coordination and exchange of synergies between the capacities that do exist in this area.

John Mukela, who heads a regional professional training institution headquartered in Maputo since 1993 - the NSJ Trust - sees the problems that Mozambique displays in journalism as the same that are found in other countries of the region. For him, the underlying question has to do with the policy that the governments of the region adopt towards this sector. The governments have agenda that are not well known on several matters that affect the normal exercise of journalism. To back up his claims, Mukela recalled that, ten years after the Windhoek Declaration, what one can note is a regression in terms of the establishment and fruition of the principles of press freedom, which was the focus of the May 1991 declaration. Mukela drew the attention of those present to the situation today in Zimbabwe, in Angola and even in Namibia, where journalists are forced to work under damaging limitations, laid down by the respective governments for the exercise of their profession.

Keyan Tomaselli, of the University of Natal, polemicised the question of the best strategy for training journalists - via universities, or via technical schools. He summarised the results of research undertaken at the University of Natal, in which newspaper editors, interviewed for this purpose, indicated that they preferred journalists trained in polytechnic institutes to those out of university faculties, because the former arrived in the newsrooms with practical knowledge allowing them to investigate and write news items as soon as they started work. In this regard, Tomaselli said he believed that, despite this, the training of journalists should take into account solid theoretical preparation, which gives the journalists the skills to know how to analyse various social, political, economic or cultural phenomena with security, since this is the first step towards writing stories the content of which is genuinely informative.

A further aspect raised by Tomaselli as a great shortcoming in journalism in the region is the question of gender balance, where the representation of women is still very low. As a brief example, Tomaselli said that when there are accidents in the South African mines, as a rule the papers send male journalists to report on them. The public loses out continually, because a woman's eye would certainly view the same accident in a different perspective, said the academic.

He recommended that the issue of gender be given greater stress in the training of journalists, and advised male journalists to try to share their experiences with their women colleagues, rather than isolating them, as happens in various newsrooms in the region.

PANEL IV

MENU OF POSSIBLE MODELS FOR JOURNALISM TRAINING AT TERTIARY LEVEL

The various models proposed for journalism training courses at tertiary level were presented by Marcelino Alves, coordinator of the Communications Science course at ISRI, with a panel composed as follows:

1. Fr Arlindo Pinto, lecturer at the Catholic University, Nampula;2. Armindo Chavana, director of programmes, TVM;3. Delfina Mugabe, deputy news editor, "Noticias".

Marcelino Alves mentioned the existence of a multiplicity of models, and said that what is most important is that these models should be in line with the socio-economic and cultural reality of the country in question, without disregarding scientific rigour. According to Alves, one of the main difficulties facing the elaboration of an ideal model for journalism training in Mozambique concerns the market itself. This, he said, is characterised by a low number of job vacancies in the media companies, and low wages which do not attract young people to seek employment or training in this sector.

A further negative factor is that, although today there are a reasonable number of trained journalists, very few are practicing journalism because of the wage conditions. This ensures that the sector continues to operate with journalists who have no formal training, thus repeating the same scenario of ten years ago. Thus what Alves called a closed circuit is created: on the one hand there are poorly trained journalists who can only produce bad journalism, but on the other hand, one cannot have good journalism without a development of the media companies and these can only develop if they have good professionals.

V MAIN RECOMMENDATIONS

From the reflections during the various sessions and the discussions in the working groups, several recommendations were made, presented and debated in the closing plenary. While the discussion started totally open, including all the schools mentioned earlier, the main recommendations focused on the School of Journalism, as this by the participants was seen to be the most important school, being public and practically free, and as such accessible for all. Their content was as follows:

1. That the Journalism School should be transformed into an autonomous polytechnic institute, dependent on the Ministry of Education or on the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology, or it should be turned into an autonomous journalism training unit under the tutelage of a higher education institution, such as the UEM (public university).

2. The Journalism School should develop synergies and greater integration with the other national and regional journalism training institutions and with the mass media.

3. The Journalism School should involve the media companies and the professionals of the sector, assessing their real needs, so that these are reflected in the curriculum development of their courses.

4. Donors should be encouraged and mobilised to grant the support necessary for the development of the Journalism School and of other institutions linked to journalism education and training.

5. The Journalism School should be equipped with the human and material resources needed for solid journalism education and training.

6. The Journalism School should consider the introduction of distance learning for working professionals.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

The complexity of the themes discussed, in the perspective of producing suggestions that may lead to the government taking decisions that help improve the quality of journalism in Mozambique, as well as the interlinking of these same themes with the entire system - and the present situation - of education in the country, on the one hand permitted debates of recognised quality and depth, which at the same time represented a major

challenge to achieving consensual solutions immediately.

The interest of the media industry in receiving professionals with a solid theoretical and technical training, adequately prepared to interpret with security and the necessary professional sharpness the social, political, economic and cultural phenomena of society, was expressed at this seminar in a clear and unequivocal fashion. Insistently, the sector claimed for itself a preponderant role in the design of curricular programmes and in integrating the future mass media professionals into their working habitat, even during the process of their academic and technical training.

Particularly evident was a more or less generalised feeling of frustration at the state and low prestige of the Journalism School, viewed by the media industry as the institution which should be the main supplier of mid-level staff, a level adjusted to the current stage of growth of the market which, although relatively vibrant in terms of diversity, is still emerging in terms of economic power.

Rather longer discussions took place in the plenary session on the qualifications that the school should confer upon its graduates. There were two positions on this: the maintenance of the mid-level qualification that the Journalism School has been conferring on its graduates, or the introduction of a bachelor's degree.

As mentioned above, a further question of outstanding importance concerns the current tutelage of the school. It would be difficult to raise the necessary support (internal and external) when the school is subordinate to a government body which has no vocation for education or for technical and professional training, and which is in turn subordinate to a second body: the government press office (GABINFO) is under the tutelage of the Prime Minister's office.

The participants regarded as inconclusive the information given during the seminar on the project to transform the Journalism School into a higher institute for mass media training. Following several requests for information addressed by the participants to the Journalism School management, the school's director, Tomas Jane, said that a process of consultation is being prepared whereby the media industry, and other specialists and relevant institutions will be asked their opinions of the project.

In this respect, the participants thought it relevant to address the recommendations from the seminar to the government so that, in response to the appeal made by the Minister of Education at the

opening session, they could "help the government define its responsibilities in the training of mass media professionals".

Finally the participants, both Mozambican and foreign, were unanimous in stressing that the seminar was a privileged occasions in which academics, media professionals and trainers could meet together for a frank and open exchange of ideas, not only about the most appropriate strategies for the training of journalists able to work in a context of diversity and pluralism, but also on the general environment of the Mozambican media sector.

Special contributions were received from experienced specialists and academics from the region who offered to share with Mozambican colleagues their own experience in this area, which is still in a comparatively incipient phase in Mozambique.

The systematic presence and contributions from the Journalism School management, particularly though its director, Dr Tomas Jane, and from the coordinators of the mass media courses at ISPU, Dr Marcelino Alves, and at the Education Faculty at the Catholic University in Nampula, Fr Arlindo Pinto, were also of great interest for a better understanding of the context and curricular programmes of these institutions, and hence for the success of the seminar.

The contributions received from academics, researchers and managers of professional training institutions from the SADC region were of great merit. These were from Professor Keyan Tomaselli, director of the Cultural and Media Studies Centre at the University of Natal (Durban); Dr Hugh McCullum, senior researcher at the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC), based in Harare, and John Mukela, Executive Director of the Southern African Journalism Training Centre (NSJ Trust), headquartered in Maputo.

The UNESCO/UNDP Media Development Project had the honour and privilege of organising the seminar, complying with one of the immediate objectives of its activities. This report is the final product of that Immediate Objective, contained in the project document for Phase 1, which ran from July 1998 to June 2001.

APPENDICES: GROUP II

PAPERS:

Jose Jaime Macuane and Obede Suarte Baloi: "Journalism in Mozambique today. A critical assessment from an Academic Perspective"

Prof. Keyan Tomaselli, Universidade de Natal: COLÓQUIO DE FORMAÇÃO PARA TRANSFORMAÇÃO. Pesquisa de Comunicação. Pontos para uma possível Discussão

Ruth-Teer Tomaselli e Estudantes do Centro de Estudos Culturais e da Comunicação: "ALCANÇANDO NECESSIDADES COMUNS. INVESTIGANDO A FORMAÇÃO EM COMUNICAÇÃO SOCIAL NUMA ÁFRICA DO SUL PÓS APARTHEID

JOURNALISM IN MOZAMBIQUE TODAY

A Critical Assessment from an Academic Perspective

By Jose Jaime Macuane1 and Obede Suarte Baloi2

Social Science Faculty (UFICS), Eduardo Mondlane University

Maputo, May 2001

1    ? Political Scientists, Lecturer at UFICS, Eduardo Mondlane University

2    ? Sociologist, Lecturer at UFICS, Eduardo Mondlane University

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with power that knowledge gives. A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to Farce or Tragedy or, perhaps, both.

James Madison3

A prominent question for contemporary societies is how citizens can participate in a conscious and systematic way in the decisions that affect their lives. The fulcral point of this matter is knowing what conditions exist so that ordinary citizens may in fact be able to acquire the data allowing them to make conscious choices, and contribute substantially to the production of decisions that affect them directly and indirectly.

In the case of democratic systems, which presuppose effective participation by citizens, academics such as Luppia and McCubbins (1998) point to what they call the democratic dilemma. That is, while citizens are expected to play a greater role in decision taking, often they are unable to do so, because of lack of knowledge or lack of information.

The fundamental argument of the authors is that people lack political information4 and this gap could lead to people with "sinister designs" deceiving the ill-informed. However, the same authors argue that democracy does not need to succumb to these threats, since citizens can find various ways of overcoming this situation.

For example, citizens can: a) base their decisions on little information; b) they can replace the information they do not have with advice from others; c) trusting the advice of others involves a trade-off, because although it reduces the costs of acquiring information (or knowledge), it also introduces the possibility of deception; and d) ironically, information in itself, be it political or of any other kind, is not scarce; what is scarce are

3    ? This is a quotation taken from Luppia and McCubbins (1998), who in turn cited it from another author. Although it is a quotation at third hand, it is beyond question appropriate to what we intend to discuss here.

4    ? Evidently this gap may be extended to other areas of social life that involve collective or individual choices/decisions.

the cognitive resources5 that a person uses to process this information. For example, information appears in the mass media, from friends, or from colleagues, but there is not enough time to process it.

Also in their discussion on how citizens acquire information/knowledge in order to take conscious decisions, Luppia and McCubbins point to two ways available to the individual; the first is through personal experience, whereby the experiences of the past serve as a basis for future decisions.

The second is from what has been learnt by others, whereby individuals replace the personal experience they do not have with observing the past of others.

In many political systems, only the second option is available, in the sense that decisions are taken based on personal experience and on the experience of others. That is: reasonable decisions imply learning from others. These "others" may be opinion leaders, parties, political or advertising campaign events, and the mass media.

However, according to the same authors, learning from others can lead to three possible results: a) clarification - when the information makes the individual enlightened and able to take reasonable decisions; b) deception - when the information received reduces the ability to predict the consequences of one's actions efficiently; c) nothing is learnt - when the information received does not change the beliefs of the individual.

In this work, our focus will be the role of information, and the processes, actors and means that spread information, and allow citizens to obtain it, and thus to participate consciously in taking decisions that affect their lives.

Our main question is to know what role information and/or the mass media have in the current stage of the Mozambican political process, characterised by political pluralism and a plurality of sources of information. Could it be said that the mass media and media professionals have helped solve the democratic dilemma ? Has the journalism practiced in Mozambique in this democratic context contributed towards the training of an informed citizenry, which can participate in decisions in a conscious manner ? These and other questions will be dealt with in this paper.

5    ? And evidently material resources too.

Communication, media, information, discourse and social impact: a brief reflection

In the generic definitions6 of communication, five factors fundamentally characterise this process: a) the existence of a transmitter; b) the existence of a receiver; c) the existence of a medium or vehicle; d) the existence of a message; e) the existence of an effect. According to these definitions, communication would be a process through which the transmitter sends a message to a receiver, by means of a vehicle, which produces an effect.

There is a certain consensus that the message to some extent involves the ability of the medium to influence changes in the behaviour of the receiver, and sometimes of the transmitter, as regards many phenomena outside of itself. Thus what happens in the communication process is the existence of signs and symbols bearing meanings and which, in order to serve as effective elements of communication, must be shared by the transmitter and the receiver. Stated more directly, two individuals can only communicate if each one identifies with the situation of the other, made explicit by the signs and symbols. Thus communication is essentially a process of shared meanings (DCS).

As regards mass communication, which is the communication aimed at a broad public, through techniques of transmitting sounds and images (television, cinema, newspapers, magazines, radio etc), two aspects are essential for analysing how it works.

The first has to do with the technical instruments, how they are organised and the content of the material transmitted, The second concerns the social consequences of mass communications, notably their impact on the social structure and processes, and their collective and individual psychological effects. This aspect is the main focus of the social sciences, and so it will also be ours, but without ignoring the technical aspects of the communication process, since we believe that the two are not watertight categories.

As regards the social science approach to mass communications, three crucial aspects may be mentioned:

Mass communication as a social institution - here the focus of the study lies in its organisation, social control, its place and

6    ? From the Social Science Dictionary (DCS)

functions in the social structure, and its relationship with political power;

The conditions for the effectiveness of mass communication - the analysis in this aspect turns on the selection of channels of communication, the nature of the messages, the self-selection of the public, the nature of the attention provided by this public, and relations with the structure of the groups in which the predisposition of the public is projected in regard to mass communication; and

The nature and evidence of the effects of mass communication - where one analyses what mass communication produces in individuals, and to what extent it influences social change or the absence of such change.

In the context of the points made above, the mass media are intimately linked to information, which becomes the means by which mass communication reaches its inherent goals. Thus information has an inherently teleological meaning, since it exists as a function of an objective: to inform, to make individuals less ignorant of certain aspects of reality, or simply to transmit meaning. Thus information as an instrument of communication only attains its objective when it transmits some meaning, since a message without meaning does not transmit information, since it does not diminish the uncertainty or ignorance of the receiver (DCS).

The origin of information is also a fundamental aspect in communication, since where it comes from is intimately linked to the meaning it intends to transmit. One may distinguish the following sources of information (DCS):

Official, when it emanates from public bodies; or unofficial when it comes from private groups;

Formal or informal, depending on the use of more traditional media (press, radio, television. cinema etc.); or more specific channels (confidences, rumours etc.);

Clandestine, when divulging the information breaks an official ban; confidential, when the information is offered on condition that it not be made public; and

Oral, written, visual or coded, depending on the channel that transmits it.

Information may also be analysed in accordance with its regularity, which may be divided, in a simplistic form, into day-to-day and not day-to-day. Day-to-day information is what most interests us in this analysis, and its characteristics are publicity, actuality, general interest, universality and regularity.

Day-to-day information has as its object the satisfaction of a human need, namely the fundamental right to disinformation.

Thus, depending on the sources and the temporal characteristics of the information, it is able to create certain meanings and generate certain effects.

Thus, for Miguel (1999) in analysing the role of the media in elections, the informative media are specially important since they become - directly or indirectly - an essential source of supplying the cognitive resources that the voters have at their disposal before making their choices. Thus what the media transmit or cease to transmit is significant from the point of view of the perception of social reality which is available for the consumers.

The creation of meanings by the information transmitted by the mass media also involves selection, in which several elements play a role, such as the frames, the discourse, the behaviour of journalists, and questions of a politico-economic nature.

The frames are the narrative forms within which the news item is elaborated, and consist of conventions about what can and cannot be said, and make understanding of the messages easier, since they are in line with the existing social reality (Gitlin, 1982; Wolfsfeld, 1993).

The forms also influence the discourse transmitted by the media, providing structure and influencing the meanings transmitted to outside audiences. In this context, the media can cement social relations through a discourse that universalises projects around blank signifiers (Carvalho, 2000). Thus meanings such as democracy, national unity, press freedom may be transmitted in a vague form, divorced from meanings referring to their complexity, in order to adjust to predominant narrative forms in certain socio-political and even economic contexts.

As for discourse, Carvalho (2000, resorting to Guha, 1988) distinguishes between three broad categories of narrative structures: primary, secondary and tertiary discourses.

According to this author, primary discourse is that which pretends to be neutral, indicative and, without exception, seeks to take on an official character. Despite its various forms, primary discourse is essentially used to produce and circulate information contingent upon the rationale of the dominant power. The discourse is organised in a non-ideological form, as if it mirrored a natural and innocent world.

For its part, secondary discourse is more subjective and, because it has comment, it is thus polysemic (it has many meanings within it). In secondary discourse, the narrator is outside of the event, explaining it.

Finally, tertiary discourse is more linked to opposition proclamations; it is distanced from events, but these are explored as third person themes.

Again according to Carvalho, the three discourses are inseparable in concrete discourses. While primary discourse produces an illusion of truth that consolidates a system of differences, secondary discourse adopts a logic that reorganises the discourse in the form of blank signifiers. Finally, tertiary discourse is formed by oppositionist terms of excluded actors, which has as its goal to infringe upon the primary discursive system of differences through its negation.

As for journalists, the main question posed is how can they manage, at the same time, to reconcile their capacity as credible spokespersons for real life (Zelizer, 1992) with their condition as citizens, and thus with a right to opinion and to transmit messages that create meanings which can serve their interests as socially relevant actors.

Finally, with respect to economic questions, Miguel (1999) states that the behaviour of the media in general, and of journalism in particular, suffers from a variety of influences, including market pressures, the ownership structure of their companies and the form of industrial production of the news, as well as the social origin and the common educational and professional socialisation of the journalists.

Thus, the production of meanings, the construction of discourses, the processes of producing information and the constraints that this suffers, the positioning of journalists, and the effects on society of the Mozambican mass media are what we intend to analyse in this work.

The fundamental question is whether the journalism practiced in Mozambique contributes to solving the democratic dilemma, and in the construction of social meanings, helping in the existence of informed citizens who can participate effectively in decision taking.

In our view, this must fundamentally involve:

a critical positioning of communication professionals towards the context in which information is produced;

the ability to identify the hidden meanings in discourses;

and the ethical courage to assume adhesion to certain narrative structures, which presupposes distancing themselves from forms of manipulation which may generate deception (defined above) in citizens;

the civic courage to break with narrative forms which contribute to the preponderance of blank signifiers divorced from objective reality and which refuse to discuss the complexity of social reality, as well as those compromised with the cementing of excluding meanings and social structures.

Let us see how journalism in Mozambique has been able to respond to these challenges in the first years of political pluralism and a plurality of sources of information. Our focus will be the analysis of some newspapers - Diario de Mocambique, Savana, Noticias, Metical and Mediafax - editions of which we have taken at random, as well as watching and listening to television and radio programmes and news broadcasts. Based on these media, we shall try to unveil how the discourse and construction of meanings are put together. The elements of analysis will be the types of discourse, how sources are used, and how meanings are constructed around important questions. In a subsidiary manner, we shall see how existing conditions contribute to the type of journalism practiced, and what are the problems and probable ways out.

Journalism in Mozambique today

The moment of political and information plurality in Mozambique today is certainly contributing significantly to improvements in the information provided to citizens. However, despite the possibility that citizens have to choose the medium and sources of information, some gaps can be indicated as regards the social and political role of the mass media in the country. Let us see how this happens, taking as our basis discourse, the construction of

meanings, sources of information and the channels through which information is transmitted.

Discourse

As regards discourse, one notes a segmentation, inside the media, in the way in which information is presented. That is, information reaches citizens in a fragmented way, since each of the media tends to express the position of certain social groups to the detriment of others.

As an example, one notes clearly a resort to official sources and visions (a propensity to primary discourse), which strengthen the dominant discourse in the representation of reality by papers whose history is most linked to the spheres of power. To illustrate this, a story transmitted on the first page of Noticias on 2 May 2001, entitled The trial in the Montepuez case starts begins with the following phrase "This morning the trial begins of the ringleaders (our italics) of the bloody demonstration organised by Renamo-UE..."

The same process occurs in the more independent papers, where the discourse mixes the expression of groups excluded from the spheres of power (oppositionists) with a burden of opinion. Examples of this are the material on the cashew sector and on the police behaviour in repressing those who attend informal bars, in Savana of 27 April.

Thus there is a clear tendency to the segmentation of the representation of reality in the media, since the editorial lines of many of the media are considerably biased. The journalism practiced in Mozambique, taking the political world as an example, has not yet managed to create an information which gives voice, in a balanced way, to the actors taking part in the process. But in fact, its bias cannot be seen as negative - what is missing for citizens, and what happens with the media of some countries, is to know explicitly the editorial line of the media they are using. On this point, the question is essentially ethical, since the citizen should be able to know what are the objectives of the information he is consuming, in order that he can decipher the hidden meanings in the messages that reach him.

Construction of meanings

Mozambican journalism has also fallen easy prey to discourses that help promote blank signifiers. For example, there is the repeated use of expressions such as smart partnership, national unity,

national agenda, democracy, decentralisation, without due reflection on the implications and complexities that these categories contain.

By adhering to discourses permeated by blank signifiers, Mozambican journalism is helping, consciously or unconsciously, in the cementing of social, political and economic structures - and even when these are unfavourable to citizens, they are unable to discover their true meanings and thus attempt to promote social change.

The use of sources

The use of sources of information is a problem in Mozambican journalism. It is true that in certain cases the media should guarantee the anonymity of sources, but it seems to us that there is a certain exaggeration as regards the invisibility of, or the possibility of identifying, sources, mainly when it comes to a more investigative type of journalism. But the identification of the sources of the information consumed is a very important element, since from it derives the possibility of the reader analysing to what extent this source is reliable.

An example symptomatic of this, and to which Domingo refers on the last page of its issue of 1 April 2001, is an alleged detention of Nhyimpine Chissano, son of President Joaquim Chissano, in South Africa. Without going into the merits of the question, understanding the facts laid out in this news item is clouded by the near impossibility of identifying the sources.

The problem does not end there: the Mozambican press is full of expressions such as: according to sources close to the matter...trustworthy sources...as we learnt from sources linked to the question. These are expressions that often obscure and weaken the reliability of the information given. Perhaps with the battle that journalists are beginning to wage, for the adoption of a law which allows greater access to information from the relevant Public Administration bodies, this gap will be overcome.

Channels of information

The question of channels of information is basically a problem of a technical and socio-economic nature. It is well known that literacy levels in Mozambique are low: this greatly limits access by many citizens to written information. Added to this is the fact that other media, such as television, are merely urban in scope, in a country where most of the population are living in the rural

areas. What is left for this majority is the radio, but access to this is also limited by economic factors. Thus access to information in the country remains difficult and when, exceptionally, it becomes possible, it is shot through with many limitations.

For example, we can see the programming of the state-owned television, TVM, in which there is still little coverage of the country outside the urban centres. This means that many citizens (and can they even be called that in this situation ?) have no access to information. How can we expect these Mozambicans to be able to participate effectively in taking decisions about the life of the country ?

Final reflections

One of the few factors that can lead to Mozambique being characterised as a democracy nowadays is freedom of the press. One most praise the combative attitude, and sometimes the courage of journalists in the building of a democratic political regime. At several moments, journalists have been in the vanguard of social criticism, at times when the intellectuals of the academic world, due to their own compromises and for various reasons, avoided playing their inherently critical role. But journalism in particular, and the media in general, are not free from criticism.

We mentioned some aspects above which afflict journalists' mission, in their capacity as agents carrying information to citizens, so that they may participate consciously in decisions taken in society. But what are the causes lying behind these gaps, and what solutions can be indicated ?

In our view - and we lay no claim to originality here - there are two types of problem: the first has to do with the economic conditions of the media, which hinder the creation of technical conditions for the existence of media which can reach the majority of citizens and thus make possible their access to information.

The second factor is the training of the journalists themselves, a matter indicated in the "Study on Journalism in Mozambique" prepared by Professor Mogekwo (2000) for the UNESCO/UNDP Media Project.

As regards training, the main gap one notes is not merely in the formal aspects of the journalist's function (indicated in the report mentioned above), but also in training that would permit journalists to possess a critical instrument in relation to their

own function.

We mean that it is not enough for journalists to reproduce the facts and make them reach a wider public. As an agent of information, who takes part in the creation of meanings and as such is a force for social change, the journalist should have an academic instrument allowing him to reflect upon the hidden meanings in the information he conveys and to try and discover the subjective intentions that may be disguised. This does not mean that journalists are unaware of the existence of these subjective intentions - what is missing is making explicit to the broader public this perception and the objectives which each of the media and each journalist wishes to attain in the process of communication and the production of information.

As a result, an inherently self-reflective journalism is missing, which can reflect continually on its task of informing and producing meanings: a journalism which is also ethical, in the sense that it makes explicit its real objectives in the social, political and economic arena.

These gaps can be filled through an education of journalists which takes into account solid technical and professional training, and a grounding in other sciences that provide the journalist with instruments for reflection as an individual who is part of a social structure in which he has a preponderant and specific role.

Only in this way will the media and journalists stop being part of the democratic dilemma, and become preponderant actors in solving that dilemma, thus contributing to the existence of informed citizens who can participate actively in the decisions of society.

Bibliographical references

CARVALHO, Fatima L (2000) "Continuidade e Inovacao: conservadorismo e politica da comunicacao social no Brasil" Revista Brasileira de Ciencias Sociais, vol. 15/43 in WWW.scielo.br

DCS - Dicionario de Ciencias sociais (1987), Verbetes: comunicacao, comunicacao de massa, informacao, informacao quotidiana. Rio de Janeiro, Editora da Fundacao Getulio Vargas.

GITLI, Todd (1980), The Whole World is Watching: mass media in the making and unmaking of the new left. University of California Press.

LUPIA, Arthur and McCUBBINS, Matthew (1980), The Democratic Dilemma: Can Citizens Learns What They Need to Know ?, New York, Cambridge University Press.

MIGUEL, Luis F. (1999): "Media e Eleicoes: a Campanha de 1998 na Rede Globo", Dados, vol 42/2, in WWW.scielo.br

MOGWEKU, Matt and NAMBURETE, eduardo (2000) Review of Journalism and communication Education and Training in Mozambique. Report for UNESCO/UNDP Media Development Project, Maputo.

SCHUDSON, Michael (1983): "Framing Political Conflict". Im Akiba Cohen & Gadi Wolfsfeld (eds), Framing Intifada, People and Media, Norwood, Ablex.

ZELIZER, Barbie (1992) Covering the Body: the Kennedy assassination, the media and the shaping of collective memory. The University of Chicago Press.

Chapter for book on Journalism Education Seminar

A Regional Perspective on Journalism Training in Southern Africa

Journalism Education for Transformation

Keyan G TomaselliProfessor and Director, Graduate Programme in Cultural and Media Studies

University of Natal, Durban

This chapter on education and training deals with a number of issues raised at the Seminar. The first part of this chapter offers some definitions and briefly discusses the nature of education in relation to training. Thereafter, I will discuss journalism as a form of research.

Working Definitions

When first planning the MA in Media Studies at the University of Natal in the early 1990s we consulted a wide range of editors in print media and broadcasting, and managing directors of media companies. One response stood out. Ken Owen, then editor of The Sunday Times, insisted that the journalists he would employ needed to be able to: a) protect the institution of journalism from corporate predators; and b) to ask critical questions. This comment was made on the basis of what Owen saw as the corporatisation of newspapers, in which profit was beginning to over-ride their critical informational role in the early 1990s in a transitional South Africa. The twin assaults from shareholders and the state were serious and growing threats against the integrity of journalism as an institution based on two key principles: the free flow of information and indivisibility of the freedom of the press. Staffers needed thus to understand first, the nature of the media institution and, second, the practice of a questioning journalism. (I will add two further components later in this article, relating to: the need to ensure critical journalism in an environment in which 1) public information has itself become a commodity; and 2) journalism educators are finding themselves in conflict with media theory as taught by non-journalism departments at tertiary institutions (cf. Windschuttle 1999; Tomaselli and Shepperson 2000).)

Owen’s response requires that we distinguish ‘training’ from ‘education’, and develop curricula which equip journalism graduates with expertise with regard both to forms of learning and doing. The Chief Executive of The Star in 1995 similarly indicated that “sometimes it is better to employ someone with a more general education who is able to think critically and who can be taught the basics of journalism by the newspaper itself” (Teer-Tomaselli et al 1996). Training is concerned with technical skills acquisition: the ‘how to’ of reporting events. Education is concerned with problem solving. Making sense of content requires interpretation and abstraction: the analysis of ongoing conditions such as are found in editorials, opposite editorial pages and opinion columns. Training is required to get the job done; education is necessary to understand the processes in which the events reported on are embedded. Reporters provide the treatment of an event via description: journalists and editors, however, provide diagnosis, analysis and comment. These cognate forms of writing provide part of the social dialectic necessary for democracy in any society. Journalism is thus a practice of making sense within particular institutional contexts, writing and/or broadcast styles, with reference to particular profiles of readers and audiences – what are otherwise known as ‘consumers’. Indeed, to be a producer of information/reports, one needs also to be a viewer, a reader / interpreter and a consumer. In Africa, the basic weakness in civil society is found in the paucity of critical media consumers / participants / citizens. Most media are urban and require literacy. Radio is the only exception. Few have access to pluralistic interpretations as may be transmitted by a diverse set of media institutions and media producers. A critical citizenry is unlikely to emerge under these conditions.

Once we understand journalism as a practice necessary for democracy, we then need to understand where and how journalism (as a body of knowledge and associated practices) relates to other bodies of knowledge and practices such as communication (including mass communication) and media studies. These disciplines connect the links between production (journalism), transmission and consumption of information (communication), and how media messages are interpreted, negotiated, and contested (cultural studies). Communication presupposes a medium, which in turn

presupposes some manner of representation. Journalism, thus, as a form of representation in-the-making, could be defined as a kind of research practice, writing and reporting, conducted within specific categories or beats such as sport, politics, finance, arts, education, health and so on. Media studies deals with representation, that is, how meaning is made (by journalists, for example), interpreted (by readers) and circulated in society as a whole (by communities).

The study of power relations is at the root of media studies. If one of Owen’s requirements for journalists is to protect the institution of journalism, then media studies offers one useful paradigm of analysis. The ability to ask more abstract critical questions thus assumes that such journalists are themselves operating in a kind of research mode, a set of critical journalism practices, in a dialogue with politicians, policy makers and academics, amongst others. Academics are supposed to report on structure, and provide explanations on ongoing processes. One of these is the commodification of universities and the public media, where bottom line pressures are trivialising education and homogenising media content. Diversity, debate and dialogue are thereby lost in both spheres of knowledge production. Journalism educators need to be alert to these kinds of processes. Training provides the technical skills, and the means to reporting. Education, however, creates the critical thinkers, the analysts and editorial writers, the facilitators of public debate.

I now provide applications of the above theory in relation to Owen’s requirements to the practice of journalism in general. This next section is drawn from the document I drew up for the Training for Transformation Colloquium organised by the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) and Rhodes University in October 2000. Three questions relating to this introductory discussion are posed. The first relates to reporting/journalism as a kind of research practice. The second connects the discussion to broader academic and pedagogical issues impacting journalism education with regard to society as a whole. The third question examines research on and about the media and industry, and how this impacts on the public sphere, media society relations, and on the state.

1. Journalists as researchers: What are their educational needs?

The aim of this SANEF working group was to consider the research skills reporters need for their work to move beyond the mimicry of official sources about events to the investigation of issues and their contexts.

Among the attributes commonly associated with journalism is that it: i) seeks the truth as far as this is possible; and ii) uses empirical methods in finding facts. Debates over what these two concepts mean are vast. But one finds very little debate on these topics in journalism circles. This limits the field to a set of procedures that fail to reflect upon its own methods, particularly its research methods. Research is often included in journalism manuals as a kind of afterthought; it has to be mentioned, so a chapter is included. Such a chapter will most probably list the places where a reporter might find certain facts, and where to corroborate them. This portrays research as a kind of ‘ask and you will get’ set of practices. Without these, the reporter has little material with which to write a story. Those journalists held up as examples to their peers usually go beyond this basic pattern of ‘finding the facts’. Theirs’ is a ‘seek and you will find’ type of model. It is doubtful that the research skills needed to perform the more difficult tasks this model requires can be learned as a set of simple newshound tips. Research skills are seldom learned by trial and error (at least not ideally). They require adequate instruction, supervision, experience and practice. These can best be provided at tertiary level. Journalists are ‘detectives’ (Private Investigators). They use the forensic skills and procedures usually associated with criminal investigation, forensic accounting, and prosecutorial questioning, etc. One would not feel very confident if the detective investigating one’s housebreaking or car theft did not have the investigative tools to do the job. Yet many tertiary institutions seem content to train ‘bobby on the beat’ reporters who can do little more than point duty and paper work. Maybe we should consider inviting the FBI to train reporters?

The point being made is that adequate investigative and research skills are as important to journalism as they are to other jobs and professions that have to ‘find things out’. It is no secret that people with research skills are being snapped up by industry. Yet, for some reason, research skills are not valued as highly in the journalism field. Journalists have a lot in common with researchers:

1. Journalists are ethnographers. They observe ordinary people in their everyday contexts, and ask them questions about their perceptions. Journalists use the qualitative interview methods found in ethnographic method. Journalists directly engage politicians, individuals and sources who are perceived to have transgressed certain society norms, such as honesty, equity and fairness.

2. Journalists examine documents. They use the research methods typically found in historical research. The press’ examination of the documents circulated by the South African Human Rights Commission on its Inquiry into Racism in the Media (1999) is a case in point, as was the expose of Nedkor’s directors’ opportunistically rewarding themselves with huge handouts in April 2001 at the expense of the company’s shareholders. In this case, the reporter found the item tucked away in the back of the company’s report, while commentators like Stephen Mulholland of The Sunday Times (Business Times, 13 and 27 May) followed up with critical comment couched within libertarian economic theory.

3. Journalists analyse discourse. They examine texts in context in much the same way as discourse analysts find out what different texts come to signify, and how. Mulholland and others discussed the Nedkor issue in terms of the culture of entitlement and greed that has typified both state officials and the corporate sector during the post-apartheid transition.

4. Journalists conduct case studies. They study particular events and organisations as examples of wider issues and institutions. Again, the Nedkor case is instructive, and was linked by journalist commentators to a similar attempt by some directors of a black empowerment company who in 1999 attempted to similarly enrich themselves at the expense of the company.

5. Journalists do action research. They (as in public journalism, environmental reporting, consumer rights columns) aim to produce knowledge in active participation with those affected by that knowledge, and for the express purpose of improving their social, educational and material conditions. Environmental reporting in the Durban press, for example, shifted during the 1990s from being about objective reports on conservation areas to subjective reports on particular instances of health-threatening industrial pollution in the city (Svendsen 2001).

A buzzword in journalism training today is multi-skilling. Unfortunately this term is given a technical inflection that rarely goes further than learning to use the latest software and computer technology. What does a reporter bring to the machine? They become hotrods: spectacular on the racetrack, but very limited elsewhere. Digital media and WWW courses are springing up in both private and public institutions. But to what extent do the graduates of such courses understand the deeper philosophy of journalism, the public sphere and producers/readers/participants? A ‘multi-skilled’ person displays a flexibility and diversity of different skills enriching each other. A reporter who has wonderful writing skills, but who has very poor research skills, can at best only say very little very beautifully (all bun and no beef). Rather have a reporter finding all the beef, with the sub-editors providing the bun. Ideally, both bun and beef are necessary. Research provides the beef of useful news reporting. A journalism student could do a lot worse than spend some time learning to do research in an academic environment. The student will learn how to conduct interviews effectively, how to observe social behaviour (and have the resources to interpret these findings), how to interpret texts in context, how to make sense of everyday language use (discourse), and so on. One does not of course expect reporters chasing deadlines to spend the time academic researchers usually require. However, the skills reporters draw on should, as a precipitate of the larger resource of research, inform their own appropriate investigative methods. Too many graduates come out of journalism programmes with an inadequate training in research, and hence find themselves frustrated in the field. They are under-skilled. It would be better if they were ‘over-skilled’. Doing research in a post-graduate academic programme will go far in getting them to that stage of development. In such instances, journalism training and education is better offered after (or in conjunction with) content disciplines such as economics,

politics, sociology, education, and so on.

Questions to consider

* Journalists as researchers: what are their training needs?

* What understanding about the media, and media research, do journalists need in order to understand the broader context within which they operate, and within which their activities are assessed and analysed?

* Media research: what research about the media needs to be undertaken?

* Why is so little value attached to research in story writing by media managements?

* Juniorisation: why not team up with a veteran in a mentoring relationship?

* How to create environments in which journalists can reflect on their own methodologies and assumptions about professional practice?

* If journalism practice involves finding out, why is finding out (‘research’) not an intrinsic part of journalism education?

* Staffers also need to be taught how to manoeuvre within institutions in order to protect the integrity of the profession.

* The notion of diversity needs to be critically examined: even within the media's current narrow frames of reference little effort is made to find differences internal to this framework. How to develop ways of doing this? Diversity relates to gender, frames of reference and analytical positions, and opinion.

* How to involve majority media (radio) more intrinsically in discussions? The high illiteracy rates found in Africa, together with largely rural populations, make radio the pre-eminent medium. Radio is usually run by state or public service broadcasters. How to ensure diversity of opinion on the airwaves?

* Need to distinguish between ‘technical training’ (a parade ground metaphor) and ‘education’ which teaches critical thinking, resolution of problems from first principles and strategic thinking.7

Now to the second question. The first question, above, relates to journalism as a professional practice. This second question explores journalism as a social practice. As a social practice, journalists need to understand the wider social, political and economic issues within which they operate. How do these impact the institution of journalism? How do the graduates of technical educational programmes fare in relation to university graduates?

2. What understanding about the media, and media research, do journalists need in order tounderstand the broader context in whichthey operate, and within which theiractivities are assessed and analysed?

Insecurity relating to freedom of the press and perceived threats of regulation and censorship are pervasive throughout the SADC area. Media training schools, media organisations and employees are often located within civil service structures,

7 My thanks to Marc Caldwell, University of Natal, for helping me to compile the points in this section. Others emerged out of the Colloquium itself. I am indebted to Lynette Steenveld for her conceptualisation of the three questions.

rather than in educational ministries. They are thus understood to be part of the state’s information and propaganda agencies. There is thus often a lamentable lack of understanding by government about the dialectical role of the media in fostering and maintaining a robust public sphere. Even schools of journalism and communication often fail to understand the nature of the social dialectic. The role of journalism is to ask critical questions of importance with regard to the `public’s right to know’. This right relates to the democratic process and the information needed by ordinary citizens to participate fully as critical citizens and discerning voters.

The media, of course, are not themselves above criticism. Issues of gender are rarely dealt with, most management and senior editorial positions being dominated by males. Language-use and audience interpretations tend to be taken for granted by media producers, who have little understanding of how meanings they make are interpreted, contested and circulated through society as a whole. It is thus necessary for all parties to the debate to discuss issues in terms of:

a) how media studies, communication and journalism and mass communication are taught and applied via research projects at tertiary institutions. Media studies, for example does not assume communication, but must account for representation. Why do newspapers assign women journalists only to so called ‘women’s stories’, for example? Some tertiary institutions teach all three – media studies, communication, and journalism and mass communication – as if there are no differences between them. This kind of epistemological confusion results in confused journalists and confused media. It also results in confused research and confused readers.

b) how and whether media and journalism research impacts the media industry specifically in terms of gender and racial sensitivity. These categories are ever-present in the social structures of media institutions, universities and state, and tend to be entrenched even in the face of equity legislation and policies designed to reorganise them (Goga 2000). Why do even serious newspapers and magazines continue to represent young women as pin-ups? This is a question more for media studies than it is for journalism or mass communication to answer. The latter two practices don’t have the conceptual wherewithal to address the question except in terms of marketing imperatives. Media studies examines the issue in terms of gender relations, ideology and other social processes.

c) reporting genres, language, styles and practices. Reporting and journalism embody styles of writing and are forms of communication. They adhere to certain (ever-changing) rules of grammar, expression and story structuring. Why and how do these genres and rules change over time? Social linguistics, as appropriated by media studies, offers some answers to these kinds of questions. The academic explains these shifts, whereas the reporter tends simply to accept them without necessarily understanding how they came about.

how readers and audiences decode media messages in relation to their own social practices, racial and cultural perceptions, and in terms of their own specific frames of reference. How do the media respond to shifting audience preferences and tastes in terms of marketing assumptions, and in terms of choice of font, design and layout? How do media keep track of reader / audience shifts in terms of profile, preferences, and consumption activity? Do they understand why and how these occur? What to they mean for the public sphere and social policy? What do they mean for ‘the market’. How do advertisers connect with, and interpret, such shifts?

e) appropriate deployment and mentoring of technical college and university graduates respectively. In a study conducted in the mid-1990s for Independent Newspapers in South Africa respondents drawn from the company indicated that technikon graduates were preferred, being more familiar with newsroom practices than were their university educated counterparts. However, the Independent respondents also suggested that university graduates were more soundly educated in the philosophy of journalism, and had a distinct edge over technikon graduates in grasping the basics of reporting and story-telling, even though they initially evidenced less practical know-how. And, they do not take long to catch up with their technikon-trained colleagues (Teer-Tomaselli et al 1996).

f) A recurring criticism from industry practitioners and independent trainers relates to the lack of practical professional experience amongst many teaching journalism at tertiary level (Teer-Tomaselli et al 1996). Academics need to have something of a professional track record to secure legitimacy from the industry and professional journalists. For Independent Newspapers KwaZulu-Natal this could be accomplished by those who have never worked in the professional sector simply by working in the company for a couple of hours a week doing sub-editing, or reporting, or computer operations. However, most competent journalism and media educators regularly interact with industry and other sectors via consultancies, through being elected to boards of directors, and through employment on state task groups and policy making bodies. Certainly, all should be directly and critically involved

with industry organisations and media rights organisations in debating and developing their respective areas of expertise.

Questions 1 and 2 dealt with journalism as a social practice and in terms of its integration into broader contexts. Question 3 deals with the media from the perspectives of those on whom it reports and images, and whose interpretations differ from those presented and popularised by the media. This brings us back to media studies, with its sub-fields of reception analysis, political economy and power relations. It also requires some discussion of the positivist communication theories of media monitoring – who watches the watchdog, and how do they do this? Some equally intriguing questions follow on this: does a medium, as something between the formulation of a representation radio programme, newspaper article, and the like, actually ‘determine’ the representation or what is ‘representable’? In other words, if a newspaper is a package for representations (meanings) the medium is merely the means whereby the representation package gets from the journalist to the reader. A further potential issue for research, then, is whether the control of the medium is equivalent to the control of the journalist, and if so under what conditions other than complete monopoly?

3. What research about the media needs to be undertaken?

The experience of the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) Inquiry into Racism in the Media (1999) has highlighted some serious problems in the way that policy, monitoring and general academically-oriented researchers approach their tasks. These have societal implications, both positive and negative. The SAHRC’s problems arose from two reports contracted from two independent researchers. The problems arise from these researchers’:

a) own lack of experience in the professional media. (None had ever worked in a newsroom, or in the media, but they presumed to hector media companies on the allegedly racist reports which emanated from them);

b) lack of understanding of bona fide media and language research methodologies, which came under sustained criticism. (They claimed to identify racism in press reports, but had no idea how to apply cultural studies, discourse and content analysis, which they claimed were appropriate to their task.) (cf. Luthuli 2001; Tomaselli 2001a, 2001b; Berger 2000).

c) misunderstanding of the relationship between theory and practice;

d) inability to write and present research which is affirmatively useful in:

i) media restructuring and transformation; ii) enabling the subjects to recognise themselves and discover solutions; iii) developing participatory research methods (cf. Masilela 1997); iv) developing agreed research methodologies relating to:

1) monitoring research (Masilela 1997); 2) reception analysis; and 3) how to relate audience and readership demographics to monitoring and reception analysis.

lack of knowledge about available and useful published research; and

f) complete confusion as to the concepts and practices which distinguish journalism, linguistics, communication and cultural and media studies.

The researchers claimed to be doing cultural studies, textual analysis, content analysis and discourse analysis, thus using obscure academic jargon to mask their methodological and epistemological incompetence. (The same occurred with regard to other studies into gender and advertising, amongst others). While some in the media might simply dismiss the confused nonsense which resulted from the SAHRC’s researchers, the consequences on society and the institution of journalism were themselves very serious indeed. Two immediate results from this lack of knowledge

of journalism, communication and cultural media studies occurred:

The media were able to deflect attention from the serious question of perceived racism in the media; and

a new proto-fascism was legitimised via the abuse of cultural studies and misappropriation of an incomprehensible discourse analysis to `prove’ what the researchers claimed to already know before the research was even started. Slogans and rhetoric thus masqueraded for scientific research.

While the academic community was quick to discredit this so-called research, the media, with the exception of the Mail and Guardian, failed to grasp the ideological consequences and threat to democracy that the two research reports contracted by the SAHRC portended. Only one editor, Gavin Stewart (1999), previously an academic, discussed the SAHRC Inquiry in terms of method. The media, in contrast, simply assumed that the researchers, not being media professionals but literary and drama graduates, had gotten the wrong end of the stick because of their lack of newsroom experience. While this conclusion is narrowly valid in its own right, what the media missed was that the two reports were an example of post-apartheid anti-nonracial anti-democratic ideology in the making. The complex processes by which this political regression occurred is best examined by a properly grounded media studies. As ideology in the making, the research reports were not just temporary aberrations by some misguided researchers. They were rather an ideological indicator of things to come, of a new set of neo-fascist impositions dressed up in the discourse of democracy and the appearance of cultural studies, a discipline geared in opposition from the way it was misapplied here. The point of this example is to return my earlier comment that journalism is a form of recording and meaning production which should be studied in relation to communication and media studies. Media studies has been described as the “watchdog of journalism” (Steenveld and Strelitz 1998). But, then, who is the watchdog of media studies? Practising journalists and most journalism educators are uniformly hostile to media studies and media theory (cf. Windschuttle 1999). This is not surprising given the nonsense presented to the media by the SAHRC researchers. To separate journalism from media studies, however, is to disempower journalists from protecting the institution of journalism from ideologically-motivated neo-fascist misappropriations of cultural and media studies (and other theories) to ensure the narrow interests of selected constituencies in society. Just as journalism can be misappropriated for fascist ends, so can any epistemology or science, whether social or physical. When cultural and media studies is understood in terms of its transdisciplinary origins, its subversive political derivation, and its emphasis on the popular, then democracy wins. Media studies examines texts in relation to their contexts, and its watchdog must surely arise from rigorous debates with other paradigms like that embodied in journalism education and from its own reflexive methodologies. This bring us back to journalism and journalists: “what understanding about the media and media research do journalists need to understand the broader context within which they operate, and within which their activities are assessed and analysed?” Ken Owen would not have expressed this need as such, but I am reasonably sure that this is what he meant.

This chapter is not intended to be a defence of media studies, but rather to offer a framework for understanding the needs of journalists as we move like a runaway train into a globalising world where everything becomes commodified, packaged and sold, at bewildering speed. Information is now a commodity; it is no longer a public right. It has a rapidly decreasing half-life. Knowledge is no longer absolute, and its half-life is recalculated every minute by all kinds of constituencies for whom power and profit are the ultimate goals. Absolutes no longer exist as different, complementary and opposed meanings struggle for dominance in a world where nothing can be taken for granted anymore. Within this global supermarket of contested, fractured and fracturing meanings, dominant political constituencies and the state attempt to retain control, becoming in Southern Africa ever more fascist in their decrees as states lose control over the media, as they vainly attempt to impose and hold onto a single interpretation of their previously privileged positions even as the world fractures into post-modern confetti in which nothing can be really understood in terms of a single paradigm, theory or practice. Journalists of the 21st century simply have to understand that their practice is as much about reporting the facts as it is about an investigation of issues and their contexts. They also need to know about how meanings are made and interpreted. Reporting technique alone is no longer adequate to the task.

References

Berger, G. 2000. Submission to the SAHRC regarding the inquiry into racism in the media.

Goga, F. 2000. Towards Affirmative Action: Issues of Race and Gender in Media Organisations. Durban: UNESCO and Graduate Programme in Cultural and Media Studies.

Luthuli, P. (forthcoming) ‘The use of discourse analysis as a research instrument: a critical evaluation of the Media Monitoring Project’s use of discourse analysis to investigate racial stereotyping in the South African media’ Master’s Thesis, Graduate Programme in Cultural and Media Studies, University of Natal, Durban.

Masilela, T. 1997. ‘Towards a Research Agenda on Media and Democracy in South Africa’ in R. Zhuwarara, K. Gecau and M. Drag (eds) Media, Democratization and Identity. Zimbabwe: Department of English, University of Zimbabwe. 16-33.

Steenveld, L. and Strelitz, L. 1998. ‘The Fifth Estate: Media Theory, Watchdog of Journalism’ Ecquid Novi 19 (1):100-110.

Stewart, G. 1999. ‘The HRC Investigation: How do we Avoid Racism in a Time of Ubiquitous Racism?’ Rhodes Journalism Review 17, 7.

Svensden, N. and Grotan, T. 2001. ‘Globalisation and its possible effects on Independent Media in South Africa’ Media Development XLVIII (2):37-44.

Teer-Tomaselli, R.E.2001. ‘Meeting Mutual Needs’, in this volume.

Tomaselli, K.G. (2001a) ‘Meeting Mutual Needs’, in this volume.

Tomaselli, K.G. (2001b) ‘Meeting Mutual Needs’, in this volume.

Tomaselli, K. and, A. Shepperson. 2000. ‘South African Cinema beyond Apartheid: Affirmative Action in Distribution and Storytelling’, Social Identities 6(2):323-343.

Windscuttle, K. 1999. ‘Cultural Studies versus Journalism’Quadrant (March):11-20.

Keyan TomaselliProfessor and DirectorGraduate Programme in Cultural and Media StudiesUniversity of Natal Durban 4041Fax: + 27-31-260-1519 Phone: 260-2505 E-mail: tomasell@mtb.und.ac.za

MEETING MUTUAL NEEDS

INVESTIGATING MEDIA TRAINING IN

A PERIOD OF POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CHANGE

31 October 2000

Meeting Mutual Needs:A Period on Political and Economic Change

By: Ruth Teer-Tomaselliand students from the Centre for Cultural and Media Studies

Graduate Programme in Cultural and Media StudiesUniversity of NatalDurban

June 2001

Terms of Reference

The Report into training of media professionals in a period of political and economic flux was commissioned by the Independent Newspapers media group. It was undertaken during 1995 and 1996 by the Centre for Culture and Media Studies at the University of Natal, Durban, and carried out by five Masters students1, as part of their coursework research programme. The report was supervised by Prof Ruth Teer-Tomaselli.

The report addresses two main areas of interest:An evaluation of the selection, recruitment and training processes of the print and

electronic media industry; andAn investigation into the nature of interaction between tertiary institutions and the major

print and electronic media employing, educating and training entry level media workers.

The study was instigated as a response to the crisis faced in South African Journalism, indicated by the rapidly declining calibre of entry level journalists. The project involved an examination of the interrelationship between first-time media employees, decision-makers within media institutions and the providers of tertiary media education. The research project was to investigate the disparity – if any - between the skills and competencies taught in the respective media educational facilities and what are required by the media institutions. The ultimate aim was to work towards creating a dialogue between the media institutions and the educational facilities in order to:

discuss matters of mutual concernenable the restructuring of training and recruitment and support mechanisms for new entry

level media workers.

It was envisaged that acting on recommendations and opinions of the media professionals, the training institutions would be able to adapt to their philosophical approach and syllabus content of their tertiary courses to the needs of the media profession, in print, radio and television. (An earlier draft of this report was circulated and discussed at the Seminar. Mozambican editors and journalists also raised many of the same concerns discussed here during the Seminar. They were also of concern to the international journalism educators such as Hugh McCullum.)

1 Sandy Dantes, Jason Delport, Sabelelo Toale, Miranda Young and David Walker, with administrative supervision by Susan Govender.

Methodology

The research strategy took the form of face-to-face interviews during which interviewees were asked questions from structured questionnaires, as well as being given opportunities to voice their own concerns and opinions. Different questionnaires were used for media professionals and the providers of media education. A limitation of the present report is that it focused on institutions in Gauteng and Pretoria, although other institutions were polled. The geographic scope of this report is Gauteng and Pretoria and the interviews took place between 15 th and 26th of July 1996.

The range of topics covered in each interview investigated therespondents’ preferences regarding the type, quality and appropriateness of contemporary

tertiary media education;the selection, assessment and recruitment of potential entry level journalists;the question of affirmative, or corrective action; andthe in-house training, mentoring and support of new recruits and existing employees.

Contemporary Tertiary Education:Universities versus Technikons

Background

In their investigation into media education in Europe, David French and Michael Richards (1994) identified a perceived gap between tertiary education and the world of work in which the needs of media industries are not being met by the critical orientation to the media education dominant in university curricula. Judging from the information gathered for this Report the same can be said about South Africa. The most often expressed complaint from media professionals interviewed at the SABC and within the print media was that university trained education did not provide journalists with the practical know-how that they needed in the workplace. Technikons however, were on the whole credited for providing journalists with the necessary skills, while neglecting the critical background and in-depth knowledge base provided by universities.

The reason for this sharp divided is that in the past technikons and universities have played different roles within the South African education system. The role of the technikon was to provide technical hands-on training while that of the universities was to provide a broad education. Historically, a technicist approach to media education was evident in technikons, an approach which was encouraged by press and broadcasting employers because it facilitated uncritical staffers who possessed the necessary technical skills and a knowledge of the media from a fundamentally descriptive paradigm.

Universities, on the other hand, could be divided into three groups- Afrikaans and English language universities, and the Historically Black Universities’ (HBUs). Afrikaans universities encouraged a mechanistic and corporate approach to media education and formulated their course work in such a way as to train students to project a positive image of South Africa both within the country and abroad. English speaking universities encouraged their students to follow a more critical perspective. Historically Black universities, many of whom uncritically adopted the UNISA syllabus as the core of their curriculum, fell somewhere between the two

(Tomaselli and Louw 1993; De Beer and Tomaselli 2000).

Today Technikon diplomates and university graduates are competing for the same jobs at a time when universities and technikons are rethinking their approaches to media education in order to make them relevant to the new political, social and economic dispensation. Tertiary institutions are facing increasing financial difficulties which have resulted in pressure to downgrade the theoretical or critical components of communication and journalism education in favour of directly applicable media skills that the market requires. This scenario applies particularly to universities.

In a changing political and economic scenario, the significance of tertiary media training has become an important issue. While some would like to use educational qualifications as a criteria to prevent the previously disadvantaged from gaining positions of authority and power, others see education as a means of hastening the transformation of South African society. The lack of training is currently being blamed for the poor standards of journalism in South Africa, but the issue may be far more complex than simply inadequate training. Never the less, education and training at the tertiary level remain an important part of the problem regarding the quality of contemporary South African journalism. It is for this reason that it is important to document the views and opinions of the people involved in the newspaper industry itself.

What respondents told us

From the information gathered in the research process it is apparent that technikons are preferred because they satisfy the immediate requirements of both the print media and the SABC. Senior newsroom personnel expect entry level journalists to be able to fit into the news environment and be capable of performing their work duties almost immediately.

The Principal of the Independent School of Journalism asserted that the quality of tertiary media education in South Africa was generally “deplorable”. This was especially true of the Vista University group and the ex-homeland universities. There were exceptions such as Pentech and Rhodes, but even these institutions could improve the quality and effectiveness of the media education they offer to students.

The Human Resources manager of the Independent group claimed to prefer technikon students to university students because even the entry-level journalists from Rhodes, which she maintained was “supposed to be the bastion of media education”, were unable to spell, write short-hand and didn’t actually know where to fit into the newsroom. According to this respondent, “technikon skills often enable technikon graduates to get better jobs than university graduates”.

The primary mentor for entry level journalists at The Star came from America where, she said, that newly graduated media students can go straight from their respective tertiary media institutions into the newsroom. Unfortunately, she stated, this is not the case in South Africa where the primary short-coming is that the tertiary media institutions do not teach the most basic of skills such as typing and the ability to write competent English articles. In the view of this respondent, our education community seems to focus on teaching theory at the expense of the practical elements of journalism, which she believes is a craft that has to be learnt through experience. This situation is further exacerbated by the legacy of separate education institutions and departments for different races which has resulted in a whole segment of

South African society receiving an inadequate education.

The Deputy Editor of the Sunday paper, The Sunday Independent, stated that he was not particularly disturbed by the quality of media education in this country, his concern was mainly with it’s effectiveness. Like most of the other respondents he said the main problem experienced by newspapers in this period of affirmative action type programmes, was that many of the entry-level journalists were second language English speakers. This obviously caused a great deal on consternation among editors and deputy-editors of English language newspapers who required and demanded excellent English language skills.

Chief Executive of The Star raised an interesting question in regard to this issue: he questioned whether media education institutions were supplying the newspaper industry with journalists or merely providing students with a “bent toward the profession”. He believed that in contemporary South Africa someone with a journalism degree or diploma may not necessarily be the right person for a particular position within a newsroom: sometimes it would be better to employ someone with a more general education who is able to think critically and who can be taught the basics of journalism by the newspaper itself.

Technikons

Technikon students are required to have a senior certificate (twelve years in school) to qualify for admission. University students are required to have a matric exemption which is a higher standard of pass, however exceptions are made based on affirmative action principles. Due to the limited number of entrance places at the technikons, the selection process is far more thorough. Consequently, it is suggested that the Universities have a far greater drop off rate.

The technikon courses have a far greater practical component with the focus solely around journalism and journalistic related issues. The universities have a broader approach with a strong theoretical emphasis and little or no practical element. The technikons showed a more active involvement with the industry.

Complimentary remarks were made appros the Journalism Department at Natal Technikon which was generally considered to be fulfilling the role of a training institution more than adequately. The selection criteria are high which means that only the most capable and motivated students get accepted into the course. This is a stimulating environment and a course which places a great deal of emphasis on practical and experiential type training.

Universities

Particularly slated was the University of the North-West, situated in the ex-homeland of Bophuthatswana, which historically was not required to provide the same quality of education demanded of the old, almost exclusively ‘white’, universities. When the changes began taking place in South Africa (circa 1990) this situation was exacerbated by the fact that many previous disadvantaged people were demanding a tertiary education for which they were not adequately prepared to receive (due mainly to the completely inept ‘black’ education policies and departments of the apartheid government). This, along with the pervasive corruption and inefficiency of these vastly under-resourced universities, has resulted in an educational qualification which does not conform to standards demanded by the professional world. Subjected to this type of context, even the most dedicated and resourceful students would

have difficulty meeting the standards demanded by the professional world. None the less, there were exceptions to the rule and that these universities certainly could provide even the most prestigious of newspapers with excellent entry level journalists.

It is worth noting however, that in spite of the attempts by technikons to meet the requirements of the SABC, criticisms still abound about the standard of journalism in general. The SABC’s Group Head of the Radio Division, like most of the other respondents, indicated a preference for technikon students, but still complained that the Corporation’s level of journalism lacked depth, and noted that issues were reported on and analyzed in a superficial way. Consequently all entry level journalists were required to receive training regardless of whether they come from university or technikon.

While technikons provide students with technical know-how and practical skills, nevertheless they are guilty of not providing their students with a broad education that would enable them to be more critical and analytical in their journalistic enterprise. The recently introduced BTech degree should begin the address this deficiency. On the other hand, universities have not yet changed their mind-set to conform to the new milieu which seems to require them to train for industry, and they still neglect practical skills. The solution perhaps lies in tertiary institutions finding a way of integrating the theoretical with the practical.

By overemphasizing practical skills the media institutions run the risk of losing sight of the importance of broad based education which should equip journalists with the critical skills which would facilitate their tasks such as interviewing and reporting. While it is necessary to avoid technical hitches, nevertheless it is depth of analysis, the quality of the content of the programmes and writing by which media will be judged ultimately, and for that people with a broad education are needed. It is recommended therefore that media organizations such as the SABC rethink this emphasis on practical skills to the neglect of critical and analytical skills.

SABC’s immediate needs versus long term needs

The SABC has an immediate problem, namely that ‘the show’ must go on the air now and smoothly, and for that to happen a technically competent journalist, the kind produced by a technikon, is the natural choice. It appears that by placing a higher premium on practical skills the SABC is focusing on satisfying its immediate needs while their long term needs are placed on the back burner. The value of critical skills increases as journalists move up in their careers. This sentiment is expressed by Prof Roelofse of UNISA, who said:

the requirements media institutions have regarding skills and immediate results is stupid because then you can cultivate a middle class of managers who can’t manage and who can’t thinklook at the SABCit’s feeble.

This comment shows the divergence of opinion between the universities and the SABC with regards to what is needed and could perhaps explain why there is a perception in the country that the standard of journalism is low.

Future directions

The educational facilities examined interacted with the media institutions on a fairly regular basis- both formally and informally. However where the technikon course content is based on

this interaction, the universities indicated that suggestions given by media professionals would not necessarily be heeded. Therefore there is a need for more communication between media organizations and tertiary institutions, particularly universities.

CORRECTING IMBALANCES THROUGH AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Affirmative action, sometimes referred to as ‘corrective action’, is being implemented in journalism and media courses at the tertiary institutions, in terms of both the entry level requirements and increased student admissions. Affirmative action policies are also being implemented in the selection, recruitment and training process of entry level workers in both the print and electronic media, according to those institutions’ defined policies which stipulate targets and time-restricted agendas.

Affirmative action aims to give educational and employment opportunities to those who have been historically disadvantaged in these areas. Current political pressures and social responsibility programmes across the media industry have made the correction of demographic representation in the newsrooms a priority, with the resultant increase in large numbers of new recruits from previously disadvantaged groups. In the future of the media industry it is vitally important to maintain an equality of gender and race at all levels of staff to ensure the continued viability and stability of the newspaper, radio or television station. It has been argued that this diverse staff demography will ensure that not one set of dominant attitudes will influence the programming or newspaper content.

Concern was expressed, particularly by the management of print media, that the post-Apartheid government could implement a quota system for companies, forcing them to meet set affirmative action targets over the next five year or ten years, if the companies do not acknowledge the need for affirmative action in the recruitment and selection of entry level workers.

The challenge lies with the legacy of an appallingly differentiated educational system which has meant that the majority of South Africa’s population are under-prepared to assume professional roles without further intervention. Insufficiently trained tertiary students become insufficiently educated entry level workers in the media companies. This in turn prompts the need for education in basic and supplementary skills through internal training and subsequent support in working in the newsroom through a constant mentoring programme.

At the SABC

The present staff composition of the SABC is not entirely representative of the South African population, both racially and with regard to gender. In an attempt to redress these imbalances, official quotas regarding corrective action appointments have been set by the SABC management. The term ‘corrective’ action, as opposed to ‘affirmative’ action, is preferred by the SABC.

In order to make provision for corrective action appointments to the SABC, early retirement packages were offered to existing staff members who wished to leave the Corporation. The Group Manager of Human Resources stated that this was a positive decision, considering various ideological discrepancies that were apparent between certain old and new staff members. A fair percentage (the exact figure unknown) of staffers voluntarily accepted retirement packages, and their vacant positions were filled in accordance with corrective action quotas.

The SABC set specific racial quotas for staff composition, and the aim is that by the end of December 1997, the entire staff of the SABC is to be 50% black and 50% white. These ratios were met, although the distribution of both race and gender across the various levels of management remain extremely uneven. It was emphasized that equity has to be widespread throughout the Corporation, ranging from senior managerial positions through to lower ranking staff members, an aim which has not been realized to date (i.e. 2001).

The official target regarding gender, for which both black and white females qualify, stipulates that by the end of December 2000, the staff composition at the SABC should be 60% male and 40% female. The research team was informed that the gender ratio for new appointments at the SABC stood at 5:1 in 1997. In other words, only after five females employed by the SABC, would a male qualify for employment. Management maintained that in most instances these regulations were adhered to, and only in extreme cases were one able to interfere with this stipulated ratio.

Each department within the SABC remains accountable to the head of Human Resources for new appointments made, in order to ensure that no deviations from the corrective action quotas occur. Furthermore, in the instance of a white male being employed by a particular department, the department manager was obliged to submit a report, detailing the reasons as to why it was deemed necessary (considering the urgency of meeting the corrective action targets) for a white male to be employed.

Fulfillment of the above-mentioned corrective action quotas has direct ramifications for the recruitment of new employees, with specific regard to educational qualifications, although it was repeatedly stressed that the most highly qualified applicant for the specific position should be appointed.

Independent Newspapers

At the time of research, the Independent Newspapers media group was in the process of formulating an agreed affirmative action policy through consultation with the Journalism unions. This policy would adhere to agreed targets, to be met pro-actively over a set time of implementation.

According to the Independent Newspaper affirmative action policy, a less skilled black applicant would be hired over an adequately skilled white applicant for the position, with the white applicant only being hired as a last resort. This policy aimed to give potential black candidates in the non-managerial level the opportunity, through internal training, to progress into managerial levels of staff.

The Business Day, which is not part of the Independent newspaper media group, adhered to its own affirmative action policy consisting of no set targets or time restrictions, but abiding by the rule that if an opportunity to hire a skilled black worker presents itself, then that worker will be hired preferentially.

Affirmative action policies have difficulty addressing the senior management levels in a newspaper. Many current affirmative action candidates are deemed not skilled or experienced enough to edit newspaper titles within the Independent Newspapers group. Therefore, the group is attempting to address the problem of the senior managerial staff by sending potential

managerial staff, all of whom are affirmative action candidates, on American journalist management course to prepare them for editing a title.

Most affirmative action policies in the print media industry do address the issue of gender, mainly in terms of employing black women. White women were not covered in many companies’ affirmative action policies, as they are excluded under the racial orientation of these policies.

Difficulties with the implementation of Affirmative Action

Many black employees did not agree with the affirmative action quota system as they felt resentful of the view created that they were hired to fulfil a desired colour ratio for the media companies’ demographic profile. They would have rather proved themselves as potentially successful entry level workers. However, when many of the black candidates being hired were unskilled, it was often difficult for them to fulfil their potential without extensive in-house training.

The good intentions behind affirmative action, which was to develop, train and improve the skills of the historically disadvantaged, would be blurred by the problems that an enforced quota system would cause. These problems could manifest itself in the media companies, when black candidates are employed in skilled positions but lack the skills to perform requirements of that position. The employment of unskilled black candidates for the sake of meeting affirmative action quotas will not only burden the skilled colleagues in the work place, but also reduce the quality and productivity of the media company. With the pressure of Affirmative action on the newspapers, entry level workers have been recruited, who lack these prerequisite skills. This gives Affirmative action an unsatisfactory image.

Due to the demand for black media workers in the newspaper industry to meet affirmative action targets, black entry level employees tended to switch jobs frequently according to which newspaper offers the better positions in terms of salary.

Recommendations for future action

The print media industry must maintain gender and racial equality at all levels of staff in order for a single set of dominant prevailing attitudes to influence a newspaper title, ensuring its future stability.

The newspaper companies need to acknowledge the need for affirmative action in terms of their own interpretation, allowing themselves to fulfil their own quotas within agreed time frames. The newspapers should indicate to the post-Apartheid government that they have acknowledged this need and are working on meeting its challenges in their selection processes.

With regards to affirmative action, media companies should avoid employing unskilled and badly-educated candidates for the sake of meeting quotas of affirmative action. Candidates should be at least potentially skilled and viable candidates for affirmative action posts.

The media companies need to address the continual job switching of black entry level workers by making their position in the company secure in terms of salary, training and career

development. An industry forum should place the difficult question of offering affirmative action candidates from other newsrooms higher salaries in order to meet their own targets on the agenda of their mutual discussions.

A further question of mutual discussion was the problem of applying the affirmative action policy to the middle and senior managerial levels of staff, to ensure that there are skilled and experienced affirmative action candidates working on these higher levels. To prepare black employees for these important positions, intensive training was an option identified by the newspapers. It was found that this was best done under an industry umbrella, rather than on a competitive basis.

With affirmative action regarding gender, there should be provision made within all the company policies for the employment of white women, as they are excluded from most racial-orientated policies. There must be more consideration for gender, regardless of the colour, within affirmative action policies of the newspaper companies.

IN-HOUSE TRAINING, ASSESSMENT AND SUPPORT OF ENTRY LEVEL JOURNALISTS

In most newspaper companies, training was a prerequisite for all entry-level journalists regardless of their previous education. The research indicated that although the technikons and universities were more focussed, their curricula was still not specific enough to meet the industries requirements. The media industry could not expect entry-level journalists to meet all their requirements immediately: a strong theoretical knowledge and critical skills, an extensive knowledge of the specifics of journalism and a firm grasp of all the required skills. For this reason it could be deduced that within the South African context, the training of journalists was, and remains, of utmost importance if media organizations are to play an effective role in national development.

Economic suppression and the poor education provided to the black communities during the Apartheid era has resulted in a lack of basic skills and knowledge needed in the journalistic profession. In order to bridge the gap, extensive training was seen to be required and even then media professionals complained that they were unsure that the investment would pay off. Ironically, many newspaper schools such as the Independent Newspapers School of Journalism were in operation prior to the fall of apartheid and catered for all-white students who neither lacked education nor were economically suppressed. Now that the need for these training courses is greater than ever, it appeared thus doubtful whether the media organizations would be able to eliminate these courses all together. Nevertheless, the problem remains that these courses are predominantly supplementary - replacing existing knowledge. This implies that what the tertiary institutions are teaching is not meeting the needs of the industry. A dialogue needs to be set up so that the educational facilities can adapt – at least in part – to the needs of the industry, thus saving extensive time and money, both of which are in short supply.

The setting up of training facilities has not always been a positively received notion as some within the newspaper profession do not see the necessity of having these types of training schools. Critics place more importance on the training and practical experience journalists receive while functioning within the newsroom. The following is a presentation of the various opinions and ideas regarding this issue.

What training is available?

SANET, which is based primarily at the Mail and Guardian, was an education trust committed to the training of journalists from disadvantaged backgrounds. From the hundreds of applicants they received, only thirty were admitted. Placement was usually around ninety-five percent. These journalists were not trained to be recruited specifically by the Mail and Guardian although some journalists were recruited through the programme. In terms of training new employees, it was said that at the time of research, the Mail and Guardian was moving away from training towards internship. Internship lasts for twelve months with a possible three month period overseas. It worked along the lines of a mentorship programme, where a student was assigned a mentor who guided him/her throughout the year.

The Independent Newspapers School of Journalism (INSJ) run by Chris van Gass also provides an entry to journalistic employment. It is now entirely black and accepts a limited number of people who must apply. This facility is dealt with in greater detail below.

The Institute for the Advancement of Journalism (IAJ) was run by Alister Sparks and was supported principally by Independent Newspapers. The IAJ, which is largely funded by overseas interests, was also developed in the interests of fostering the journalistic talents of previously disadvantaged people.

The SABC also ran training programmes which entry-level journalists were put through, but did not have a cadet school similar to the ones mentioned above, although such a school had been mooted. The Manager of Training and Development of the SABC is on record as saying that should the school be successful, other interested broadcasters would be invited to participate.

Who does the training?

Within mentorship support programmes, training was done by the senior member of staff such as the News Editor. Within employment that required a specific skill such as sports reporting, sub-editing or graphic journalism, training was done by the person in charge of that particular area. This is time consuming and represents a significant investment on the part of the organization. No training course teaches these skills. Within the cadet schools there were permanent internal trainers as well as people who were brought in from the outside. In the 1995 SANET programme, William Bango of Africa Information Afrique (AIA) from Zimbabwe was a special guest. Other lecturers included Hugh Lewin from the IAJ and feature writer John Perlman, then of the Weekend Star. The Star had a group of two internal trainers and occasionally brought people from the Pointer Institute in Florida. Training at the SABC was done by the recently established training division headed by Manana Makanya. Tutors for the envisaged broadcast school within the SABC were to be drawn from places such as the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism, the BBC and institutions in Holland and Norway. Within the field of sports reporting, the sports unions responded to the need to provide black journalists with the background of sports they may not have been familiar with. During the World Cup, the Rugby Union provided training. The United Cricket Board also planned a training programme.

INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS

The Independent Newspapers Cadet School functioned as the primary in-house training facility for entry level media workers and served as a process of identifying and developing the journalistic aptitudes of the mostly black entry level workers within the newspaper. Since its inception, the cadet school mainly has catered for the improvement of basic skills of the affirmative action candidates, compromising the majority of newly recruited entry level workers.

The poor standard of journalism training at South African tertiary institutions, attributed to unsuitable curricula, has resulted in most of the entry level workers being ill-equipped to work immediately in the newsroom. An unacceptable level of proficiency in English and lack of basic skills were cited as the main short-comings. The cadet school was tasked with rectifying this situation by providing a transitional course, educating the new recruits in the basics of journalism.

Even with the entry level technikon or university graduates, their basic skills and knowledge are insufficient to allow them to work straight in the newsroom. The cadet schools also built on

academic and practical knowledge gained at tertiary institutions, serving as a vital transitory process from tertiary education to practical experience.

The aim of the cadet school was to facilitate an effortless transition from a limited or non-existent experiential training to being equipped to work successfully. This was to be achieved over six months, through exposure of the entry level workers to all the basic journalistic skills and the opportunity to work in the newsroom environment.

The selection process for this training involved the following steps:

every entry level worker underwent a computer assessment test to evaluate the individual’s cognitive skills, ability to work and relationship skills with other colleagues;

entry level worker was required to submit some written work; and

possibly be required to undergo psychological evaluation.

The majority of the candidates since 1986 have come from historically disadvantaged communities, with 90% enrollments in this course being black. The cadet schools served as a means of identifying possible journalistic aptitudes of the black entry level workers and then developing them within the context of the newspaper company.

Only the entry level workers, who are in need of training and do show potential, were sent onto the cadet school. Conversely, not all post-graduate entry level workers were automatically exempted from the school. Those who were perceived as lacking in the basic skills of journalism, outlined below, were required to undergo this training.

The School’s Aims

The aim of the cadet school was that over a period of six months, the entry level workers would acquire all the basic skills of journalism, including:

news writing skillsbasic English language skills;120 words per minute shorthand;press and general media law;basic subbing and layout skills;information gathering;ethics and issues of journalism; and interviewing techniques.

On completion of the cadet school, the cadet journalists usually worked in internship positions in the newspaper. With the right support mechanisms, some were contracted on a full time basis and moved into all levels of the organizational structures of the newspapers within the Independent Newspapers group. It was envisaged that once the cadet schools have trained the junior level of new reporters, the next levels of staff, the middle and senior levels of management and the editors would be addressed.

Some editors were of the opinion that the cadet school was sufficient in preparing an entry level worker for the job as a journalist in the newsroom. A candidate with a bachelor’s degree did not necessarily have the knowledge or experience to work immediately in the newsroom, thus the cadet school provided a good bridging mechanism and gave the worker the skills needed to become a successful journalist. The entry level university graduates would not automatically possess the basic skills taught at the cadet school. The school built on the knowledge gained at the university by teaching workers how to work in journalism through writing for specific contexts and target readerships.

The editor of The Star was of the opinion the Independent Newspapers School of Journalism played an important part in shaping the character of the future journalists of Independent Newspapers. Comparing the period spent at the Cadet school to the period doctors and dentists spend in internship programmes, he suggested that individuals go to university and technikons to acquire the tools of the journalistic vocation, but there remains a necessity of having to learn how to use these tools in the workplace: “there is always going to be a need for the internship”.

However, the curriculum of the course suggests that the Cadet school was there to teach the skills that weren’t taught at the various Technikons and universities. These skills include basic English language competency, typing, shorthand and other essential skills. The head of the cadet school stated that in the South African context therefore, supplementary media education would remain the dominant form of in-house training for a long time to come.

The Deputy Editor of The Sunday Independent concurred, saying that the Cadet school was “entirely designed to address the failings of people that tend to come into the news business”, and that the course “builds on existing knowledge. It’s designed to fill the gaps which prevent these people form being rounded journalists”.

Shortcomings of the Cadet School

The cadet schools were also seen to have a number of shortcomings, notably:

The cadet course concentrated too much on technicalities of journalism, particularly shorthand and press law.

There needed to be more emphasis on the art of investigating and writing a story.The length of the cadet course should have been cut down from six months.The knowledge gained on the cadet courses was often incomplete and did not fully equip an

entry level worker for the newsroom.Within the Independent stable there was no formal mechanism for the appraisal of journalists.

The task was done subjectively by sub-editors and mentors without specific criteria. A previous appraisal system which had been regarded as a failure, was devised by a group of management consultants who believed that as much emphasis should be placed on output as there was on performance. This notion was resisted since The Star management was of the opinion that the newsroom could not be treated like “a factory”. The primary means of assessing the entry level journalists that were in place at the time of the research was undertaken by the mentors who provided support and gave advise to these newcomers.

Some cadets who have completed the course stated that it is a waste of time and that the

knowledge gained did not really add to their academic knowledge from universities and technikons. Noted one mentor, the entry level workers tend to learn more from working practically in the newsroom through programme, where help was available for their own development as they worked.

Further Training Opportunities at Independent Newspapers

Besides the cadet school, there were other in-house courses run by the Human Resources department at The Star, as part of the human resources development strategy. The courses were scheduled according to the number of nominated new employees, and included:

management courses;secretarial courses;negotiating skills course; and time management courses.

The human resources development strategy worked through the following process to schedule these courses:

Management selected employees who they regarded having potential.These potential employees underwent a selection process and were slotted into different

categories according to their particular needs.Individual career planning was done with the employees in each category.The human resources department helped each employee plan their individual training needs. Employees were allocated to a particular course according to their training needs, including

Human Resources Development Training, Management, business language and people skills.

According to the course co-ordinator, the employees involved in this strategy process took responsibility for their own development and were encouraged to show a pro-active initiative in gaining skills and improving their potential as successful journalists. It was the aim of the human resources development strategy at The Star to ensure that all levels of staff were entirely computer literate, enabling the utilization of new computer technology.

Financial Journalism Training

In The Business Report, entry level workers were not necessarily sent to the cadet school, but rather underwent more informal in-house training. The Business Day and established Business Schools have jointly tailored half-day courses spread over a six week period, which covered the basics of financial journalism, including business reporting and reading balance sheets. Financial institutions, for instance, Nedcor and The Reserve Bank, held training seminars for the workers at The Business Day, providing an opportunity for them to be exposed to the business world. These seminars covered:

taxation;companies on the stock exchange;mergers and takeovers;inflation;

bank rates; and what companies conceal in their balance sheet.

These seminars were deemed the best way for entry level financial journalists to comprehend these financial issues, as they were explained by experts, who were able to relate how these issues operated within the broader financial framework. This gave the new recruits a chance to gain a comprehensive knowledge of the financial world and its latest trends. The business seminars for journalists were designed to supplement the financial knowledge gained at a tertiary institution like Rhodes University. The course content and structure of the six week course was decided upon by the lecturers from the Business School in consultation with The Business Day.

Mentoring and Support

Training support mechanisms were needed for the graduates of the Independent Newspapers cadet school. This occurred through a continued mentoring process. The mentor acted as the guiding and assistance mechanism for inexperienced new recruits as they began applying the skills learnt in the newsroom and in field reporting. This process took the form of mentoring workshops, through which the mentor was able to continually assess and improve the skills gained, as the reporters worked in the newsroom.

The mentor’s purpose was to rectify possible mistakes that an inexperienced reporter could make while investigating a possible story and to assist them in all aspects of working as a journalist, from improving personal qualities to making them a successful journalist.

TIMES MEDIA LIMITED

Times Media Limited in general, have always favoured the mentorship approach as being more beneficial to the entry-level journalist than an in-house training. This type of approach established a relationship which allowed the entry-level journalist to feel a sense of belonging within the newsroom. The negative aspects of this type of approach have been that it became problematic when employing an individual who has not had the benefit of a university or technikon education. The opinion was expressed that it was not Times Media’s responsibility to train journalists the basic skills, that was the function of South Africa’s educational institutions. Mentors or senior journalists should not be expected to teach the basic skills of journalism, their function should be to develop skills an inexperienced journalist has already been taught.

THE SABC AND TRAINING

Being a public service broadcaster and the country’s only national broadcaster, the SABC has been and continues to be very aware of the role it plays in the development of journalism in this country. Although there is no one precise definition of a public service broadcaster, it is generally understood that among its many roles it should serve as an instrument of social and cultural development which educates, informs and entertains its audience. The SABC has attempted to fulfill these developmental and educational roles through the assistance of “professional support structures” such as its training department.

The SABC professed to place a high priority on training. The Group Chief Executive of the SABC at the time of the research, Mr. Zwelakhe Sisulu, expressed “concern about the long-term development of journalists”. Furthermore, it was reported that a demand was made by the South African Union of Journalists (SAUJ) for the SABC to “concentrate on training” (Mail & Guardian, August 2-8, B7: 1996).

The Necessity of In-House Training

Training forms the backbone of any specialized organization, and in the case of the SABC, the image of the public broadcaster in a multi-faced society can only be enhanced through a professional support structure. -Ron Morobe (Training and Development 1996: 1)

The “professional support structure” to which the SABC’s Head of Training referred is the department for Training and Development at the SABC. It was established in August 1993. Although SABC management was adamant that increased interaction between the industry and educational institutions was necessary, it was explained to the research team that “you can’t give up your training”.

A senior television editor provided a distinction between education and training, by stating that education is what is required at educational institutions, whereas the in-house training programmes provide training. He defined training as “constant grooming of skills”, adding that training is indeed a “repetitive activity”.

Broadcasting is a constantly changing environment, and specific computer skills are required in order to operate the new generation digital equipment. For this reason technology skills were automatically taught to new employees at the SABC, and it was therefore seen as unnecessary for the educational institutions to duplicate these skills. It was perceived as evident that technological know-how is vital to the broadcast industry, hence the necessity of providing training courses to keep employees updated.

Since the period when this research was conducted, plans for the introduction of a cadet school at the SABC have reached an advantage stage. The Head of Training informed the research that the exact mechanics of the cadet school has not been decided as yet, the SABC is in the “budgeting stage now, and it is being discussed at the moment”.

The structure of the SABC’s in-house training department

The SABC’s internal training and development department has been in existence for only two

and a half years prior to the research. The training is divided into two divisions, the television training division and the radio training division. In August 1993, when the training department was first opened, foreign trainers from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Australian Broadcasting Corporation were flown in to provide various training courses at the SABC. The SABC sent journalists for training to these institutions and also invited trainers from them to come and conduct in-house training.

The training department has established close relations with the following institutions:

Australian Broadcasting CorporationBritish Broadcasting CorporationCanadian Broadcasting CorporationCommonwealth Broadcasters Association Institute for the Advancement of JournalismThompson Foundation

How in-house training operates

The radio training division offers a variety of courses covering a wide range of topics such as basic radio journalism, interviewing techniques, specialized reporting (for example, economic reporting), sound production and production design.

Training within the radio division was done solely on request. Regular meetings were held between the radio trainers and line managers who pinpointed areas of need. The training department then formulated courses to meet these needs. When new journalists were recruited into the radio news division, they were put through a basic radio journalism course which served to introduce them to newsroom skills such as writing reports, interviewing, and packaging. Technical skills were emphasized through an introduction to news studio, as well as training in the use of machines and equipment used in the news production. The course was practically-oriented and involved sending the journalists to the radio studios where they were able to obtain first hand experience.

Training courses were provided bot1h for entry-level employees and for existing staff members who may have required a ‘refresher’ course in their specific area. Tertiary education did not exempt new employees from attending the training courses regardless of whether they had an honours degree or a Technikon diploma. The intention of broadcast training is for “all entry level employees to attend these courses”. Insufficient funds was an obvious drawback for the training department, as it limited the amount of training courses on offer, which resulted in prioritizing the areas for which training is essential.

According to a senior training manager, the course at the time of research was fairly basic and nowhere near where they would like it to be. He envisioned the formulation of a formal structured and compulsory training programmes for new journalists with strict evaluation and feedback on performance. this training would them be able to build on the knowledge the journalists have acquired from their tertiary education.

With the television training division, various training courses were on offer at the SABC, including:

Television News and Current Affairs TrainingTelevision Production TrainingTelevision and Radio Presentation TrainingRadio News and Current Affairs TrainingOperations: Television and Radio Training Technical Training

Growing Capacity: Training the trainers

Employees who were selected to become trainers had all had extensive experience in the field. Said one senior training manager: “we try and train out best people as trainers”, the reason being that “there is no credibility problem”. Furthermore, these journalists would have “handled most of the problems or key areas within a job situation”.

Of the twenty-four trainers who were initially trained, most of these have left and have “gone to other jobs, don’t want to do training any more or have been transferred to other places”. Only three of these trainers remained actively involved in training at the time of the research. The small number of trainers available in the television news department was an obvious concern as it placed limits on the amount of training courses on offer at any one time since the trainers became overburdened. As a result of being left with so few trainers, it was claimed that the whole system was in need of re-evaluation. A significant amount of time and finances was necessary in order to increase the number of trainers, and to entice the trainers to remain at the SABC.

Concerns Expressed by Training Management

Various crucial concerns were expressed by training managers at the SABC, and at the time of the research investigation, the following issues had been identified as highly problematic and in requirement of immediate attention.

Assessment and Evaluation of Trainers As had been the case with Independent Newspapers, the training department made no provision for the assessment and evaluation of trainees. No exams or tests were administered for broadcast journalism training, as “tests in this type of training are off-putting and demoralizing”.

On inquiry as to whether a system was in place through which the trainers would provide comments as to the progress of the trainees, it was stated that the trainers were not permitted to remark on the abilities of the trainees. The SABC’s position was that it was the responsibility of the training department to train, and if it becomes obvious that the trainee, once operating in his/her full capacity, was not of required standard, the problem then lay with the management of that particular department. In this regard, training management claimed that it was “not our job”.

Within the training department, there was dissatisfaction with this state of affairs, with some of

the trainers preferring a “very structured” training programme with “strict evaluation”. The viability of running a training programme that made no provision for the assessment of trainees was questioned. The lack of assessment and evaluation was not only evident within the training department, but with the SABC as a whole, since no formal appraisal was in place.

Both radio and television trainers felt that it was line-management’s responsibility to evaluate the performance of their staff. The radio training manager explained that since it was in line-managers which requested the training in the first place, they had the obligation to see that their used the skills they had required. However, most often this did not occur. Line-managers were slated for their reluctance and inability to take responsibility for seeing that trainees’ abilities improve by following up on their progress and providing support mechanisms. According to a senior television trainer: “people go back to the work situation and the line-managers don’t really follow up and analyze the work that they are doing – there is no appraisal system at all”. Independently, the radio division concurred by saying that journalists who come out from training received no support when they went back to their division: “we teach people new skills but they are not allowed to think creatively, they are not allowed try out new ways”.

Lack of support from line management The view was expressed that it was pointless of the SABC to train journalists, and then not provide them with sufficient support when they return to the newsroom. Support mechanisms were needed in the newsroom in order to ensure that journalists use the skills that they were taught, and equally important, that the newsroom provide an enlightened space for journalists to exercise newly discovered skills and approaches. Too often line-managers insisted that journalists revert to “the tried and tested way of doing things” which had become routine and tired.

Training as a Scapegoat for Dismissal A further problem faced by the training department was that training was often used as a disciplinary mechanism for staff who showed excessively poor performance. employees who have been in the SABC’s employment for as long as ten years were sent on training prior to dismissal. In such instances, according to trainers, the excuse for dismissal would be that the “training department says you are useless”. The research team was provided with two examples of this practice occurring concurrently with the research.

The first example was that of a present who did not perform well on-air, hence the training department was “called to give in an evaluation”. Although the training managers found no problem with providing an evaluation, they refused to sign the evaluation report, “because then the training department is used as a scapegoat for management to dismiss staff members”.

A second example was that of a cameraperson who had been employed at the SABC for ten years, and because he was “absolutely useless”, was sent to the training department. Whilst on training, it was evident that this particular employee was simply not interested, and so his supervisor was contacted. The supervisor’s reply was “keep him because it is part of the disciplinary procedure”. Once again it was emphasized that the training department was not to be used as a disciplinary measure.

Journalists dropping out of training Another problem that the department faced was that some of the journalists attending training courses dropped out before the course’s completion. Although line-managers recommend that their journalists undergo training, the journalists were free to drop out even if is in their best interest to complete a course.

If they (journalists) feel that they are doing a good enough job, it is difficult to thrust the training down their throats. Once or twice we have felt that people need training but if a person says and actually writes it to you that he feels that he is good enough there is nothing you can do

Size of the SABC

The size of the corporation created another problem that the training department. The corporation had over 5000 full time and numerous part-time/freelancers, making it difficult to coordinate training for all of them: “There are so many individuals within the SABC making co-ordination very difficult. Even if you have a policy it can be sabotaged along the way”. Most of the corporation’s part-time and freelancers did not undergo training. They “walk in, do things and move out”.

A further obstacle with which the training department is faced is that of the 5000 (five thousand) full time staff members in employment at the SABC. Ron Morobe claimed that “the biggest part of our wage bill goes to part time staff and those are the people who do not undergo training”. This has resulted in obvious implications for the training department, including the fact that whilst the training budgets are being cut, the SABC is spending a vast wage bill on individuals who do not undergo training.

The Training Budget and Financing The proposed budget for the department of training and development for 1997 stood at an allocated R27 000 00 (twenty seven million Rand), although it was felt that far less would be approved.

A training course that certain members of the research team was permitted to observe was the “Story Telling” course for television news production. This course was run for newly employed television news broadcast journalists, on average eight journalists, all of whom were flown up from the regional offices of the SABC. The duration of the course was two weeks, during which time accommodation was fully paid for by the SABC. Training Management informed the research team that the entire cost for this course alone amounted to R100 000 (one hundred thousand Rand).

The Poaching of Staff Members The autonomy of the SABC in terms of news broadcasting was seen to be seriously challenged with the emergence of private broadcasters, who had an immediate advantage over the SABC in terms of finances. There is a “massive demand for trained people in the emerging broadcast industry”, and in the opinion of a senior television editor, the SABC would

continue to be a resource for new broadcasters. This was a cause of great concern, as according to all respondents at the SABC, “our best people are being snatched”.

Private broadcasters were automatically in a better financial position than is the SABC, who, as a public service broadcaster, simply could not afford to meet the salary brackets which their staff members were offered.

The new broadcasters, it was claimed, “wanted to hit the ground running, and cannot afford the time to train people, so the trained experts are ciphered off”. Among the best people were being poached, which placed a burden on the corporation in general, as other employees would be required to “fill the void”. In these circumstances, the SABC would become “more heavily reliant on tertiary institutions” to fill the new vacancies.

SABC’s perceptions on the standard of tertiary journalism education The perception expressed in the training department was that technikons came closer to what was done at the SABC and consequently technikon diplomates were more familiar with newsroom practices. It was also felt by the training personnel that university graduates, although lacking in practical skills, were more soundly rehearsed in the philosophy of journalism although it was felt that what technikons taught was adequate. On the whole, the trainers expressed satisfaction with the quality of entry level journalists coming into the corporation from tertiary institutions.

University graduates had a distinct edge over technikon students in terms of grasping the basics of reporting and story telling, and although university educated journalists came in with less practical know-how, “there was not much to teach and so they quickly caught up”. Nevertheless, the content of the basic journalism course had to be learnt on the job – “it taught them what they had to do on a day to day basis”. Since the SABC was constantly upgrading its equipment, it was impossible for educational institutions to keep up with technological advancements because of the high costs involved and as a result it made sense to train journalists at the corporation since much of the equipment used by educational institutions was obsolete.

A significant complaint about entry level journalists is that they came in with a lack of basic writing skills. “There is a very specific way of writing for television and radio. It is different from what is probably taught currently (at tertiary institutions).”

A number of trainers within the SABC establishment shared the view that there perhaps too many institutions within the country offering (broadcast) journalism. There was a concern that tertiary institutions were becoming increasingly commercialized and were offering journalism as a subject simply as a means to generate more money. Of particular concern to both radio and television training departments were the number of private institutions opening up.

Another criticism leveled against tertiary institutions was that most of the academics who taught journalism in such institutions had limited or no practical experience working in the newsroom:

The number of people who actually teach journalism are in most cases people who haven’t had that experience they are people who have sat at university, read a number of books

and are now sitting in from of a class saying this is how (journalism) needs to be done. Then when you get to the real world you realize that it’s a totally different thing.

Relationship with tertiary institutions

The training department has relations with a number of technikons, particularly Technikon Northern Transvaal and Peninsula Technikon. At the time, no formal links had been made with universities although lecturers from Rhodes University visited the SABC quite often. Very few other institutions consulted with the training department on an informal basis.

The training department’s relationship with technikons came in the form of internships. Students who came into the SABC for their internships first underwent training in the training department before they commenced work in the newsroom. According to the internal radio trainer, the training departments relationship with the technikon was beneficial because it enabled the department to know what to expect from incoming journalists and therefore to this information to draw up training courses specifically for them. It was agreed, however, that an even closer relationship should be established which would allow the SABC to feed directly in the curriculum of technikon and which would eventually lead to the SABC and technikons setting up training courses.

One problem that the SABC training personnel encountered with tertiary institutions was that they sometimes found themselves caught in the crossfire between academics who did not get along, making relationships between the SABC and the tertiary institutions difficult:

We have tried to talk to a number of people at educational institutions but them we run into this type of thing where professor so and so doesn’t speak to this one and this one, Oh God a technikon. And then we get tired, because then what is the point?

References

De Beer, A. and Tomaselli, K.G. (2000) South African Journalism and Mass Communication Scholarship: negotiating ideological schisms, Journalism Studies, 1(1), 9-34.

French, D. and Richards, M. (eds)(1994) Media Education Across Europe. London and New York, Routledge. Tomaselli, K.G. and Louw, P. E. (1993) Shifts within Communication Studies : From idealism and functionalism to praxis – South Africa in the 1980s. In Dervin, B. and Hariharam, U. (Eds.) Progress in Communication Sciences. Vol XI. New Jersey: Ablex.

Note on AuthorRuth Teer-Tomaselli is Associate Professor in the Graduate Programme in Cultural and Media Studies, University of Natal. She serves on the board of the SABC, and has also been a board member of East Coast Radio and Durban Youth Radio. Prof Teer-Tomaselli sits on the Technical Committee of the Forum of African Women Educators, based in Narirobi, Kenya.