“Mobile journalism — that blew my mind”
Floating traders living out a precarious existence on London’s canals, the fear of sexual assault in South Africa through the eyes of a student studying in London and about to return home, and the only Italian street food trader in London’s “Little Italy” – three of the subjects tackled by journalists on the Thomson Foundation Summer course for their final multimedia projects.
The group of international journalists had spent four weeks of intensive training at the foundation’s London headquarters learning innovative techniques in digital and multimedia journalism.
Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Ewen MacAskill from the Guardian newspaper who acted as a mentor for their final projects was among the leading journalists working with them.
The final fifth week of the course for the participants from Seychelles, Kenya, Uganda, India, Indonesia, Kuwait and South Africa was spent in a newsroom in one of a number of the UK’s leading media organisations.
When he introduced mobile journalism that blew my mind
Mobile journalism lies at the heart of many of Thomson Foundation’s current training courses, which is why this year’s summer course started with a challenging week of training in this powerful storytelling tool led by one of its masters, Glen Mulcahy.
Mojo was followed by a look at virtual reality and 360° video which is growing in popularity amongst journalists as the technology improves and equipment becomes more accessible.
The need for quality ethical journalism and good storytelling underpins the summer course along with a recognition that the media landscape is constantly changing and journalists need to innovate and understand the digital environment.
The Thomson network is awesome
Data journalism featured strongly this year along with the always popular apps and tools which help in research and creativity.
“It is important that journalists are well-rounded and this course is one of the few that does that, equips you with a lot of other skills such as data journalism, how to edit pictures and video,” says Pontsho Pilane, Health Reporter, Bhekisisa, Mail and Guardian, South Africa. “I think that is what we need in journalism right now, innovation.”
The Thomson Foundation summer course is held in London every year in August and September.
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