Journalism training takes two forms in South Africa — at a general university or at a technical university. The model for the technical training is Tshwane University of Technology, where I am teaching in Pretoria. The general plan is that students study only journalism for four years, and for two of those years they are getting hands-on work experience at a news organization.
During years one and two, students take journalism classes on campus. In year three, they have a year-long internship, with a supervisor at the work site and a faculty supervisor. Also during the year-three internship, the student must find a community organization that needs help publishing an internal publication, and they must accomplish this task. For instance, they might start a newsletter for a church or an environmental club. In year four, they are considered to be trained well enough to be working as a full-time journalist, which they do. On periodic Saturdays they come to campus for lectures on topics like politics. They also study newsroom culture and are taught how to fit in and survive it.
The selection process is rigorous at a technical university, so the students who are admitted are there because they really want to be journalists and because the university believes they already have had a broad education.
At the general universities, journalistic training is more as it is in the United States, with about two-thirds to three quarters of the classes constituting a basic liberal arts background, including courses in communication theory. The remaining courses are journalism.
The technical university plan seems to better address concerns of U.S. news organizations and journalism professors that there is not enough time to teach all the basics, have the students become proficient in those basics, and then also teach multimedia skills required in digital journalism. The flip side is that as the world becomes more complex and interconnected, students also need basic knowlege of economics, history, geography and literature, as well as second-, or even third-, language skills.
The movement here is to somehow try to combine the plans at the two different universities into one program for journalism training. And I’m told it won’t be easy.
Gary Kebbel's Travel Blog 