Media practitioners have found themselves recently in the spotlight, as allegation after allegation and rumour after rumour implicate high-level public figures, from Deputy President Jacob Zuma down.
A row over one Sunday newspaper’s alleged suppression of a story, and its subsequent publication in a rival paper, led to the suspension and then resignation of a well-known investigative journalist.
But it has also led to probing questions about the criteria and procedures the media use in publishing — or not publishing — information at their disposal.
Investigative journalism throws up the most frequent and most complex questions. It is a cornerstone of media practice in a democratic society, in which the watchdog role of the media is critical.
But investigative journalism is also very difficult, requiring excellent research and analytical skills, tenacity — and a firm grasp of defamation law.
Rhodes University is running a course this month that aims to equip prospective investigative journalists with the necessary skills to function in this fraught and competitive area.
Five working journalists from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region and six honours students from Rhodes’s journalism department are participating in the pilot project.
‘Our thinking was that it would be enriching for Rhodes students to interact with ‘real’ journalists from Southern Africa, and that the course might provide the SADC journalists with fresh skills, perspectives and experiences to aid them in their work back home,” said lecturer Rod Amner, who is running the course.
Rhodes is using the experience of this short course to develop an investigative journalism module that will be incorporated into their journalism honours programme next year.
‘I am hoping to repeat this course next year, but it will be stretched over three terms as part of the journalism writing and editing specialisation in journalism students’ fourth year,” Amner said.
‘In parallel to the investigative journalism course next year, the writing students will be filling the pages of Grocott’s Mail, Grahamstown’s community paper,” Amner said.
The journalism department bought the paper to provide a publishing forum that would develop students’ practical skills.
Amner hopes the investigations will be published in Grocott’s and even further afield.
He says the main aim of the course is to get students to engage in some ‘real world” investigative research and writing so that they can experience the sense of purpose and achievement associated with investigative journalism.
The journalists will be made aware of some of the constraints they are likely to encounter in their investigations. Students will be expected to produce ideas for in-depth investigations from research, personal experiences and group brainstorming. The course will also deal with the ethical decisions challenging journalists.
Amner says students will be taught to use a range of appropriate investigative research skills, techniques and methods such as computer-assisted research. ‘They will learn how to draft readable and skilfully narrated stories of issues such as corruption.”
Students will be made aware of the role and impact investigative journalism can have in society.
This year practical experience will be an important part of the course and students will receive budgets to investigate their stories.
‘We don’t expect that all research processes will necessarily yield usable new stories,” Amner said. ‘But students will submit detailed process reports, which tell the story behind the story.”