As a leading journalism school situated in the heart of South Africa’s media hub, Wits Journalism receives a steady stream of visits from journalists and academics who enrich students’ experiences, and engage with industry leaders.
Several international visitors have stopped byWits Journalism in recent weeks to interact with students and various project teams.
Director of the Graduate Programme at Ryerson School of Journalism in Toronto, Canada, Bill Reynolds is currently visiting, spreading his time between the career-entry honours and Master’s classes. Reynolds guest lectured workshops in Professor Lesley Cowling’s Creative Writing classes. He touched on tactics and techniques of literary journalism, feature writing and “indigenous” writing (or writing about marginalised/indigenous communities), while giving a Canadian perspective to the class.
Jeff KellyLowenstein, an American investigative journalist also visited Wits Journalism over a few weeks between July and August as a Fulbright Fellow. KellyLowenstein runs the Investigative reporting short course in the journalism department.
He and a group of journalists, who met during the Africa Investigative Journalism Conference in 2016, are working with professional and student journalists in for-profit and non-profit newsrooms on three continents on an investigation that will be presented at the 10th Global Investigative Journalism Conference. The GIJN conference will be held at Wits University in November. It is the largest gathering of investigative reporters in the world and the first time it is taking place in Africa. Wits Journalism is excited to be co-hosting the conference in November and welcoming various delegates from the continent and around the world, including Pulitzer Prize winners, data journalism pioneers and the investigative reporters behind the Panama Papers who will be among the speakers, presenters and representatives. Click here to register and find out more about the conference.
The department also welcomed delegations from two Zimbabwean universities keen to learn from the Wits experience as they plan to launch campus radio stations. The one delegation came from the Midlands State University in Gweru, and was led by Dr Oswelled Ureke, a lecturer in the department of media and society studies. The other, from Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) in Masvingo, was led by James July, the university’s campus radio co-ordinator.
Both delegations visited Voice of Wits and held discussions with radio and other journalism staff. The GZU delegation also attended Radio Days Africa. It is hoped that Wits Journalism will be able to support the development of campus radio stations at these universities.
“University-based radio has huge potential to enrich university environments, develop skills and add to the public discourse. We hope that these initiatives will succeed despite Zimbabwe’s highly restricted media environment,” said Prof Franz Krüger, head of Wits journalism.
