The newly-launched Grocott’s Mail Citizen Journalism Newsroom will be hosting a graduation ceremony for the 40 high school learners who participated in the first Grocott’s Mail Citizen Journalism training course.
The learners will receive certificates to acknowledge that they successfully completed the course, which spanned six teaching weeks in August and September.
The newly-launched Grocott’s Mail Citizen Journalism Newsroom will be hosting a graduation ceremony for the 40 high school learners who participated in the first Grocott’s Mail Citizen Journalism training course.
The learners will receive certificates to acknowledge that they successfully completed the course, which spanned six teaching weeks in August and September.
The course taught the learners basic computer literacy, how to use the internet for research and email, basic principles of journalism and interviewing skills, and how to take better photographs, particularly with cellphone cameras.
The final two weeks of the course focused on using this knowledge and skills to research and write newsworthy stories, accompanied by photographs.
These items of content were then published in the MyStory section on Grocott’s Mail Online (www.grocotts.co.za), which any citizen of Grahamstown is welcome to contribute to.
The training attendees were from local township schools like TEM Mrwetyana, Nathaniel Nyaluza, Mary Waters, Khutliso Daniels, Ntsika and Nombulelo High School.
The training was conducted by Grocott’s Mail New Media Editor Michael Salzwedel and Schools Outreach Officer at the Rhodes School of Journalism and Media Studies, Khaya Thonjeni.
The second citizen journalism training course begins on Monday and will be attended by a variety of Grahamstown citizens, all eager to be equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to be able to produce and publish their own stories.
The Grocott’s Mail Citizen Journalism Newsroom is open for anyone to produce their own stories, free of charge, with assistance if needed.
It is equipped with 10 computers, which are hooked up with data cables, memory card readers and Bluetooth dongles, so that photographs can be downloaded from almost any make and type of cellphone.
