Journalism students attending a media workshop
JOURNALISM STUDENTS GET TRAINING ON BUSINESS REPORTING
BY: Dorothy Nakamyuka 4th /November/2013
Makerere University final year journalism students have been trained on business reporting.
The students were trained during a workshop organized by Makerere University Journalism and Communication department and facilitated by the African Center for Media Excellence (ACME) at Makerere University.
Executive Director, Peter G.Mwesige has further called for simplicity and transparency while reporting business related stories.
“Most readers dislike figures and take long to understand them, we therefore write to simplify things for them.”
In her opening remarks, Jane Nalunga (SEATINI-U), called on the students to take keen interest in figures, to enable them strive towards being good academicians relevant in all aspects of life. She added that it’s important to have knowledge about everything in life because this raises their self esteem.
She urged students to read books like, informing the news; the need for knowledge based reporting by Thomas Patterson or on online study http://journalists resemia.org.
This was based on the notion that journalism graduates lacked knowledge on business related reporting for the current competitive job market, highly used to writing hard news stories only.
However, you might question how effective the one week workshop was in emphasizing finance and economic reporting, Kimuli Elizabeth, one of the participants, says it has broadened her thinking and also helped her understand the nature of the business environment today.
“I think lam ready to report about business out there and help readers and listeners appreciate business stories more than ever.”
A famous quote by Along Franko says, “I took the road less travelled and that is what made all the difference.” Sometimes we don’t have to wait for circumstances to challenge us before we react. Rather than wait to finish university and then start specializing in business reporting, the struggle starts now or never.
The participants were advised to start looking out for business related stories and improve their skills in business reporting.
Mrs. Teddy Nannozi, the trainer from African Center for Media Excellence, demonstrated to the participants and guided them on how to write good business stories using the inverted pyramid. She said the inverted pyramid has changed with new demands from readers especially its relatedness to the community.
But so many topics were handled from the business world like numbers and news; writing about prices and inflation; taxation, capital flight and many others relevant to the journalism-business reporting field.
In concluding remarks, Paul Busharizi, thanked fourth year students for being good and encouraged them to take up business reporting as a priority because nowadays everything involved transactions of money thus the on trend.
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS 