Online news and journalism that exits today in South Africa

Sthembiso Sithole

@Sitholesthe

Online news is the fast growing new tool to access news. News is constantly updated every minute. Live coverage and breaking news are what has made life easy for many new consumers. South Africa and the journalism that exits in the country are growing although there are many questions about its reporting.

Fast growing technology has and still plays a huge role in South African online news. Today there are many online news sources that use different elements such as photos, audio and so on.Incorparating multimedia text, photos, audio, video, graphs have resulted to multimedia.

Media 24 is no acceptation when it comes to multimedia. It incorporates different elements of multimedia. This online news source has always been the best according to journalism student at the Tshwane University of Technology. Theirs stories are accurate and well balanced. It was a supplement to their text-base stories that News 24 realized that combination of audio narrative with images can make video packages more powerful than written text.

http://www.news24.com/

The good thing about journalism that exits in South Africa is that it has grown and played a huge role in making South Africans express their views without fear. Today we have citizens who participate in all media houses through writing letters, emailing, calling and also being part of the programs or topics being discussed in the studio.

Although many citizens may participate in the media that we have, there are still many issues that are being discussed about the kind of journalism that exits in the country. The ANC ruling party and other citizens have went out to support the Proposed Media Tribunal and the Protection State of the Information bill. One of the key things that are discussed is how journalists report and cover events and public figures. The media regulatory bodies are always faced with cases from politicians complaining about the way the media defamed them.

Timeslive has been one of the biggest online news source that many South African use to access news. As I went through the online news source, I noticed that in most cases they have gallery. In most of the leading stories they ensure that they have gallery of the person or event. A great example will be how they reported and added different elements in the report of Whitney Houston’s death. They showed different photos (gallery) of her. I believe that was creative and that made them different from other online news sources.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/

Sowetan is also one of the easiest online news that many people use to access news. The exciting thing about this online news source it also have a blog. The blog has different posts about some of the stories that could not be in the newspaper and in the entire online. The posts in the blog are a true reflection of what the community wants to read about. It is constantly updated.I believe it also has increased the number readers for both the newspaper and the online department. It also has a section called Shwashwi that is about gossip.

http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/

Township School Received Important Gifts

Sthembiso Sithole

@sitholesthe

Pupils with their new and needed pots.

Many township schools often struggle to compete with former Model C schools and private schools as they are under resourced. Feladelfia High School which caters for pupils with disabilities in Soshanguve is one of these schools. Despite its struggles, it managed to receive a pass rate of over 70 percent in 2011. Even so that doesn’t mean its pupils, many of whom are from poor families, don’t need cooking equipment and other basic needs for children to eat.

To make things easier for the pupils of the school, recently a donation of several important needs were given to Feladelfia by Denel Land System at an event attended by government representatives. “We decided to finance the school. We told them to tell us what they need from us; from then we developed the partnership,” explains Denel’s Human Resources Manager, Thulani Mahlinza.

The company donated new cooking ovens, classroom equipments and promised to help repaint the school for the next coming five years.

Another benefit that will come from the partnership is that engineers and technicians from Denel will assist pupils with some of their work during the next five years – ensuring they gain expert skills.

Grade 12 pupil, Zacharia Sithole, believes that this is a great opportunity. “As a student we are blessed. I am happy that we are recognised.”

TUT Students Believe in University's Mentorship Programme

Sthembiso Sithole

@sitholesthe

Every first year in university deserves a mentor to assist them with their academic work and give them a start – especially at the beginning of the year. A lot of the time students have to stand in long queues while processing last minute paper work, they would get lost as they move from office to office and yet still have to get to lectures and might even get left behind in their work. That is where mentors come in to assist.

In South Africa a lot of schools also have an education system that doesn’t prepare most students for university. In high school students have teachers who spoon feed them the whole time whereas at university they will get lectures and lecturers, but they have to do a chunk of the work by themselves and lecturers just work as facilitators as it would be getting discussed in class after readings would or should have been done for homework. Many students aren’t used to this and as a result fail to do the readings properly or end up not doing them at all expecting the lecturer to spoon-feed like the high school teacher did.

When I was in first year I was mentored and now, in second year, I have been chosen as one of the academic mentors by the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). This is a method of getting students to assist their peers in first year. They pick students with a proven academic track record from the previous year. The students being asked to do this task would pick their own subjects of strength and focus on those, but it’s clear that we will learn a lot from the first years who have been selected and they will not just be mentees as my classmate Robinson Nqola explained, “They have information that I did not know.”

We met the first years recently and they seem eager and keen to learn as most first years usually are. We just hope the spirit doesn’t disappear. After exchanging ideas with them the job of planning contact sessions will then start.

TUT first year journalism student is excited to have been excepted by the university as Higher Education Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, explains that university space is limited with only a capacity of 180 000 new entrants a year.

“Education is life itself and I am looking forward to learn new things this year,” says Matsembe. She is now looking forward to meeting her other mentors.

Education student at the university, Sibusiso Nkosi, says his senior peers played a crucial role in his academic success when he was a freshman. “They were good people who were always there to offer support. During the exams I did not experience difficulty because I studied and gained a lot from my mentors.”

Mentor Ofentse Ramatsetse is optimistic about his role in the programme. “It is going to be an interesting experience because we will get a chance to recollect what we studied in the previous year and share with the first years. We will ensure that all first years yield positive results out of this mentorship programme.”