Sunday, October 23, 2011

Trainee journalists gather for Ghana's first online journalism boot camp

Future journalists will gather at the Accra International Press Centre on 21st October, 2011 for the first Boot Camp on online Journalism under the theme "Enhancing your Future as a Journalist through Online Journalism".
 
Keynote address for the occasion will be delivered by Ethan Zuckerman, Director of the MIT Center for Civic Media, USA and board member of Penplusbytes and Dr. Kwabena Riverson, board chair of Penplusbytes, will deliver a welcome address with Kenneth Ashigbey, Managing Director of Daily Graphic Company, serving as chair for this important boot camp.
 
The Boot Camp is aimed at providing learning and knowledge exchange opportunities in online journalism topics such as: online News Publishing and Online tools for gathering news, revenue models for online news, modern trends in broadcast technologies and social media and journalism.
 
The International Institute for ICT Journalism (Penplusbytes) working with Ghana Journalists Association(GJA) is organizing this boot camp with support from Raycom Technologies and Main One Cable.
 
The highlight of the event will be the launch of Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) Social networking platform www.gjaghana.org. The platform is intended to provide members of the association with opportunities to effectively explore the inherent benefits of social networking tools as they interact and connect with the general public. It has become necessary that today's journalists harness the presence of these social network tools in the creation and dissemination of news content. According to Mr. Bright Blewu, Secretary-General of Ghana Journalists Association "the face of journalism is changing rapidly due to the advent of new technologies bringing with it challenges and opportunities and as an association we are committed to support our members to take advantage of new media in order for them to serve their audiences better while at the same time maintaining the highest professional ethics."
 
The one-day media boot camp, will offer a practical, in-depth and hands-on application of new media in the newsroom and forms part of Penplusbytes 10th anniversary celebrations. Kwami Ahiabenu, II President of Penplusbytes noted that, "As we celebrate 10 years of empowering the media through the use of ICTs to advance quality journalism we are excited to provide a unique opportunity to future journalists to help them navigate the new media world as they grow as journalists in our new information age".
 
Other presenters at the boot camp will include; Isaac Yeboah of myjoyonline.com Chris Donkor of Dot house, Kent Mensah of Citifmonline, Nana Kwabena of Edge cube and Prince Asare of Viasat 1. The rest are Alex Adjei Bram of SMSGH, John Totoe of Mobile Content, Isaac Maafo of Bulksmsghana, Kofi Amamoo of Expresso, Charity Donkor of MTN and Prof Linus Abraham (Rector) of NAFTI
 
Participating schools will include the School of Communication Studies, African University College of Communication, Ghana Institute of Journalism, Christian Service University, Kumasi, NAFTI and Jayee College.  
 

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