GIJ to go knowledge-based journalism

The Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) has finally taken the bold decision to introduce knowledge-based journalism studies.

It has taken three years of research and exciting discussions for the faculty of Journalism and Media Studies to arrive at this.

This will help facilitate the creation and sharing of quality ideas, rich experiences, useful information.

It will, without a doubt, help give meaning to participatory democracy, leading to the creation of decent jobs for citizens to earn a living wage.

Knowledge-based

As a democracy, what we need is knowledge-based journalism, in which journalists are not only effective and efficient at interviewing, investigating and storytelling but also, the kind of journalists whose stories are well informed by relevant specialised expertise.

If news is to be a means of getting citizens to think rationally and discuss issues intelligently, it should contain contextual information. This will help citizens to make sense of issues, events and situations.

What the model of knowledge-based journalism will also bring to us are stories that not only respond to the interests of citizens, but critical, compelling, clear, easy to read, engaging and interesting.

With the introduction of knowledge-based journalism, Ghanaians will begin to see their journalists engage in analysis, drawing linkages, making inferences, theorising about causes and solutions and suggesting sound judgements.

                                                                                    Dr Ebo Afful

Content

This form of journalism is more likely to tell stories with content that citizens would want to read or listen to and then share with others for intelligent debate on the various platforms.

Also, journalists will go beyond just evaluating or critique views of experts to transforming views of experts by putting forward new interpretations and conclusions that will go a long way to impact the thinking of academics, professionals and politicians. 

Such display of quality news content can help repair our news media’s declining reputation, enhancing finances by giving the much-needed relevance and audience share in the current competitive news market, which offers a lot of online alternatives.    

Convinced that knowledge-based journalism is the journalism of 21st century, three of such programmes designed by the faculty of Journalism and Media Studies are ready to go through accreditation process.

These are Journalism and Politics, Journalism and Economics, as well as Journalism and Sports. They are Bachelor of Arts programmes, which have been carefully designed to instill in students, various journalistic storytelling skills, relevant specialised knowledge, professional attitude and values to serve and meet the demands of citizens.

Students will be exposed to broadcast, print and online journalism not just content, but also production.

Model

In effect, with such training model, covering highly politicised issues, journalists will see the need to contextualise and critically examine expert knowledge as well as competing positions to facilitate discussions that bridge entrenched ideological divisions out of which will emerge a broader menu of policy options for the consideration of citizens.

In addition to this, an expert journalist engaging effective tools, such as, Twitter, blogging, video interviews, Facebook, podcasts and other available media vehicles can initiate debates among a network of academically, professionally and politically diverse contributors and readers.

This technique of journalism is motivated by the knowledge that dialogue can help readers to understand and appreciate the opinions of others while acknowledging the fact that they have different opinions.

For students to be industry ready, which is the essence of the model and expectation of the news media sector, besides internship, the programmes have a three-hour weekly laboratory session for practical work.

These sessions will be facilitated by professionals with at least five years’ experience on the field. The hands-on training will form part of students’ final score for them to place value on the sessions. 

The various competing new media platforms and the critical questions are sufficient to make the case that journalism schools need to rethink their traditional training model, which focuses on interviewing and storytelling skills, if they should stay relevant in today’s digital society.

This means their future is dependent on shifting to effectively meet the demands of society and the profession.

This calls for passion, commitment, vision and leadership to bring about the shift needed in how journalism covers issues, events and situations and their various controversies.

In this case, GIJ has accepted the challenge and is ready to lead the way.

The writer is Head of Dept, Media Studies, GIJ

E-mail: ebo.afful@yahoo.com