"Fit for purpose": towards tracking the quality of university education of entry-level journalists
- Authors: Berger, Guy
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/159835 , vital:40348 , DOI: 10.1080/02560054.2005.9653329
- Description: Debate about the extent to which university education should serve industry is an important consideration for institutions of higher learning in a transforming South Africa, and particularly for those teaching would-be journalists. This issue can also be profitably analysed with reference to the current framework of the South African education authorities who argue that the quality of higher education institutions should be measured in terms of their “fit for purpose” to missions aligned to stakeholder interests in the transformation of the country as a whole. This criterion for quality assessment tends to focus on the educative processes within a university, but it can be argued that it ought to extend into the examination of the output consequences of journalism teaching. This would amount to not just fitness for purpose, but also achievement of purpose – and the latter including a creative and critical impact.
- Full Text:
Book Review: Black, white and grey: Ethics in South African journalism:
- Authors: Garman, Anthea , Mwale, Pascal N
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/159968 , vital:40360 , DOI: 10.1080/02560054.2005.9653325
- Description: Book Review: Black, white and grey: Ethics in South African journalism by Franz Krüger Cape Town, Double Storey, 2004. Reviewed by Anthea Garman and Pascal N. Mwale.
- Full Text:
Teaching journalism to produce “interpretive communities" rather than just “professionals”:
- Authors: Garman, Anthea
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/159846 , vital:40349 , DOI: 10.1080/02560054.2005.9653330
- Description: Debates about whether journalism is a “trade” and can only be learnt “on the job”, or whether journalism should even be taught at universities, are no longer fruitful or even interesting for teachers in tertiary environments. The far more important discussion around the teaching of journalism should be on the approach which focuses too exclusively on its nature as a “profession” and so ignores the critical function of journalists in the world as “interpretive communities”.
- Full Text:
Thinking about South African tabloid newspapers:
- Authors: Strelitz, Larry N , Steenveld, Lynette N
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/159825 , vital:40347 , DOI: 10.1080/02560054.2005.9653337
- Description: A popular view of tabloids is that they pander to the lowest common denominator of public taste, they simplify complex issues, and they generally fail to provide information that citizens need in order to make informed political judgments - the latter being the raison d’etre of serious newspapers. In summary, tabloids “lower the standards of public discourse” (Ornerbring and Jonson, 2004:283).
- Full Text: