BY: Jubilant Cheyeza Baloyi
Student Living, also known as MeD8 Media, hosted a News Literacy Workshop for journalism students from 17 to 18 July 2024 to develop students’ proficiency in writing high-quality articles.
Student Living is an online newspaper based in Pretoria that focuses on national news. It provides young adults with the opportunity to gain knowledge and experience in journalism. The platform educates students about various aspects of journalism and helps them improve their writing skills.
The workshop enabled journalism students to gain knowledge from different perspectives. Six professionals from various newsrooms participated to educate students about journalism and the expectations when covering stories. The workshop included journalists as well as individuals from different roles within journalism.
Shirley Govender from Globe Post Newspaper was one of the invited speakers. She discussed “Solution Journalism,” which involves reporting on responses to social media discussions and trying to find and test solutions to problems. She emphasized that stories need evidence to be credible.
Govender explained the four pillars of Solution Journalism: response and how, evidence, limitation, and insight. The response focuses on addressing a social problem and evaluating the effectiveness of the response. Evidence provides data or qualitative results to indicate success or failure. Insight shows what can be learned from a response and its relevance to the newsroom’s audience. Limitation places the response in context and acknowledges any shortcomings.
She further explained how to identify compelling stories through solution journalism, “You can’t find the best solution story, it doesn’t exist. You can find stories that illustrate approaches to a problem. You can highlight what is new or interesting in any thoughtful effort without implying it’s the right or best solution,” she added.
Journalism plays a vital role in our lives, and with limited resources, it is possible to make a difference in your community. Mr. Lulama ka Sozathini from Icamagu News started an online radio station, newspaper, and news platform to educate the community in IsiXhosa. Despite being a self-funded community newspaper in a rural area, it has achieved more than many other community newspapers.
Mr. Sozathini highlighted ongoing challenges for rural community media: “Limited media reach, unstable networks, power cuts, limited access to information, and no proper coordination of statistics related to social matters,” he said.
The workshop was a great success, with many valuable lessons learned. Artificial Intelligence is proving to be useful in the journalism field, helping find information and edit videos.
