My short yet fruitful journey with Highway Africa and Fututre Journalist Programme: Autumn School

"Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock."  ~Ben Hecht

As much as there is no doubt the truthfulness of Ben Hecht's arguement, i certainly believe newspapers are still and will be a part of our day to day lives, even though the virtual world of the internet threatens to kick it slowly but surely out of the room. What we have experienced is a drastic change from our old ways of accessing infromation and news in and around our surroundings. Ben notes the fast change in the way the world progresses.

This alludes to my observation of the digitalising world, following a very informative, educating and knowledge-generating conference hosted by Highway Africa, Telkom, MTN and other distinguished corporations. the world is becoming too fast for a newspaper. Stories no longer wait to be told a minute later, but they want to be told now. Nowadays, by the time a newspaper hits the street in the morning, a story would have gone through a complex evolution process, that generated different modifications to its angle and dynmanics, which in turn might contradict what was compiled and put together the day before.

Hence, the birth and growth of digital media. What I learnt during the conference is the role that social media can play in gathering, saving and sharing information, but most importantly I have learnt that we, as journalists have a major role to play and a bigger task on our shoulder to deliver relevant and unbiased information to our audience.

Lastly, I would like to take this opportunity to go, briefly, through my journey with Future Journalist Programme. Attending the first F.J.P: Autumn School in March, I never knew what to expect. I went to Grahamstown in Eastern Cape with nothing but a brain that I always suspected ran on gigabytes rather than kilobytes, because of my ability to be an interactive individual, yet, many times could also be a big mouth and egocentric monster, which did not care about others except him. This kept me in bad books with fellow colleagues at times.

I learnt the benefits of working together with people. Multiple minds engaging to find relevant and efficient solutions for whatever task they have. We were taken through a learning process that changed the way we perceived our cellphones and simple communication devices.

Today, I know the strength of a simple phone which has a camera and video capturing capability. The world does no longer need complex and absurdly expensive equipment to tell a story, but a simplest of devices can narrate the biggest story that people never knew of. Nowadays people have come to learn of the challenges their kids face in schools. Student bullying has been going on for a long time at different levels in schools, but through short, yet powerful clips shot using cellphones on site these days, these activities have been brought to light and unfolded for all to see the exact reality that other children go through, at the hands of brutal, and heard-headed social misfits.

This is just but an example of the strength that digital devices and social media, especially cellphones have these days.

By B_K_Chronicles, on the Hidden Chronicles