Participants of the 57th Training session of Young African Journalists Programme have been schooled on how to thrive in the global space and how to tackle issues affecting the profession.
The training took place today Tuesday October 03, 2023 at the campus of The American University in Cairo (AUC).
The African Journalists Workshop is an annual training organized by the department of Journalism and Mass Communication in the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at AUC.
Director of the Kamal Adham Center for Television and Digital Television, Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication, Dr Hussein Amin schooled participants on the importance of research in Print media.
Dr Amin told the young journalists that in order to better understand their target market there were six types of print media research to guide the process.
The types of research the scholar mentioned included; readership, circulation, management, typography/makeup, readability and online media use.
Dr Rasha Allam on her part drilled participants on the value chain of Newspapers.
“Value chain analysis involves analyzing each activity from the perspective of ‘value’ it adds to the final product or service” Dr Allam said.
She also emphasized “the more the competitive value chain, the more overall margins or profits”.
Despite the newspaper value chain, she highlighted that there was no recipe for a successful business model.
The participants were also immersed into the world of science journalism. The presentation was led by Heba Elshehed and she emphasized on the importance of science journalism, the obstacles encountered, the various types, its pitfalls and some tips to thrive in the domain.
Encouraging the participants to embrace science journalism, she highlighted its importance, some of which included the fact that every major issue facing global society had science and technology components at its core.
Elshehed also noted that it was important because of the existing knowledge gap, “when individuals/nations lack access to science and technology, they are doomed to lag behind their better-equipped counterparts” she explained.
Some of the obstacles to science journalism, he highlighted, include; the emergence of the internet and its impact on science journalism, the difficulty to measure impact and feedback of science related topics and the relationship between journalists and scientists with the latter most often complaining of being misinterpreted by the former.
The participants also had the opportunity to be drilled on media and artificial intelligence by the Executive Director of the Kamal Adham Center for Television and Digital Television, Salma ElGhetany.
In a world where artificial intelligence is threatening job opportunities, media professionals are not left out.
ElGhetany explained that though Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to be a threat, it could be used to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of journalists.
She highlighted that journalists could use AI to look for breaking news, process massive data sets, dig up media insights and audience analytics, content translation, news verification for fake news, archiving and database keeping amongst others.
Despite the advantages of using artificial intelligence, the scholar pointed out that there were some drawbacks such as spreading mis and dis information through deep fakes, copyright violations, biased or discriminatory content amongst others.