The Sunday Mail
Grace-Anita Kaerasora : CCOSA student
Catch them young or rather “catch them at the ABC level” were the words of Mr. Cris Chinaka, a renowned journalist and one of the most experienced in the field who was present as a guest speaker at the seminar.
| The Barclays bank, graciously held a Young Business Reporters seminar at Meikles Hotel Harare on Monday the 18th of July for student journalists from CCOSA and Harare Polytechnic. |
This was aimed at educating the students on business reporting before they actually got into the field to avoid the mistakes their senior business reporters are currently making. Some key guest speakers present were the legendary Mr. Aiden White, who gave the students a brief history about the media from Rhodesia to present.
The seminar aimed at enlightening us a journalists on issues to do with business, economic and financial reporting, issues that we wouldn’t have grasped clearly or taught at college. As trainee journalists we were introduced to the various issues that we will encounter once we enter the field. Practical topics were discussed and taught such as financial statement analysis, how to report on the banking sector and since Barclays was hosting the event, we gained insight of Barclays as an organization and were afforded the opportunity to meet and interact with Barclays Executives like Mr. George Guvamatanga, the Managing Director and V.Mthimkulu, Banking Director who also spoke about media relations as well as how Barclays created and maintains its media relations.
Chris Chinaka, addressed us on how to behave and conduct ourselves as journalists in general and as business reporters, how we should aim to strive for accuracy and balance to achieve credibility. He noted how there is a difference between a journalist and a ‘churnalist’ who does not report on business or finance to make the public understand but instead reports what he/she is told as is which is absurd considering the fact that business reporting has a lot of jargon that the ordinary citizen of Zimbabwe will not understand unless simplified by a journalist, which is basically the role we were introduced to. As journalists we learnt that when it comes to business and financial reporting we become the mediator between an organization and the publics.
One of the highlights of the day was the presence of Zimbabwean famous blogger, Larry Kwirirayi, the face behind 3 men on a boat who presented on social media and how to effectively utilize it and communicate great content to an audience and basically on being “ourselves” when reporting on social media.
In addition to being informed, various practicing journalists were present from different media houses like CCTV, The Source, Newsday and the Herald and we got a chance to interact and connect with them.
Photographs taken by Grace Anita Kaerasora.
Students, YOU CAN SEND YOUR ARTICLES THROUGH E-MAIL, FACEBOOK, WHATSAPP or TEXT Just app Charles Mushinga on 0772936678 or send your articles, pictures, poetry, art . . . to Charles Mushinga at [email protected] or [email protected] or follow Charles Mushinga on Facebook or @charlesmushinga on Twitter. You can also post articles to The Sunday Mail Bridge, PO Box 396, Harare or call 0772936678.
