The Grocott’s Mail Citizen Journalism Newsroom hosted a graduation ceremony on Tuesday for the participants in the second six-week Grocott’s Mail Citizen Journalism training course.

The Grocott’s Mail Citizen Journalism Newsroom hosted a graduation ceremony on Tuesday for the participants in the second six-week Grocott’s Mail Citizen Journalism training course.

The course, which is offered free of charge, covers basic computer literacy, how to use the internet to do research and send emails, how to take better photos on your cellphone and how to edit them afterwards, the fundamentals of journalism (news values, beats, ethics, interviewing skills, etc), and how to apply all of this and produce good quality stories.

On Tuesday evening the course participants gathered at Grocott’s Mail to received certificates to acknowledge their successful completion of the training course. They also received Citizen Journalism Newsroom membership cards, allowing them to continue using the Citizen Journalism Newsroom to produce their own stories, and to identify themselves when approaching sources for stories.

The graduation was conducted by Prof Harry Dugmore, the MTN Chair of Media and Mobile Communication at the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University and Michael Salzwedel, New Media Editor at Grocott’s Mail. Also in attendance was Rod Amner, a lecturer in the Journalism and Media Studies department at Rhodes University, who assisted with teaching some elements of the course.

To read stories written by course participants (and to submit your own stories), visit the MyStory section (under MyMakana) on Grocott’s Online (www.grocotts.co.za). To find out more about the Grocott’s Mail Citizen Journalism Newsroom, visit www.grocotts.co.za/cjnr. The training course will be run again a number of times in 2010 – watch this space!

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