THERE WILL BE INK - Initiative for Policy Dialogue

Existing International Training OpportunitiesThomson Reuters Foundationhttp://www.foundation.reuters.com/journalism/The foundation has offered journalism training programs in Africa for many years. Some ofThomson Reuters’ training programs for African journalists are held on the continent and last for afew weeks. These programs draw journalists from different African countries. Other programs areheld in Britain. Our researchers encountered fewer journalists trained by Thomson Reuters than bysome other programs, though the organization is one of the more prominent ones offering training.Training graduates held Thomson Reuters in high regard.There are two broad themes in Thomson Reuters’s program curriculum: (1) general writing andreporting skills and (2) in-depth sessions on specific subjects, such as understanding budgets anddifferent industries. A report by News Agency of Nigeria journalist Adeleye Ajayi on a 2008Thomson Reuters training in London shows that, in addition to sessions focusing on technicalinformation like understanding central banks and interest rates, the Reuters training devoted a gooddeal of time to training on basic journalistic writing skills. Field trips – like one to the Reutersnewsroom and one to the European Bank for Economic Reconstruction and Development – were amajor part of the training, as they were in other Thomson Reuters programs that journalists wespoke to attended.A feature of the Thomson Reuters programs that interviewees especially liked was the collection ofmany journalists from different countries, which they described as a networking and learningopportunity.In 2009, Thomson Reuters held introductory business training programs in six different Africancountries. It used the introductory trainings to select “a group of 20 journalists, who demonstratethe greatest potential” who would then be invited to participate in trainings in a global financialcenter: London, Paris or Lisbon. A partnership with the Investment Climate Facility funded alltrainings.BBC World Service Trusthttp://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/trust/The trust offers training programs for journalists in several African countries, including Angola,Ethiopia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Sudan. The trainings are usually of a short duration – one to twoweeks – and are held in-country. Most BBC Trust programs focus on broadcast media. Trainings aregenerally organized around a theme, such as helping to raise awareness about HIV or encouraginggovernment accountability.Cardiff University School of Journalism, Master of Arts in International Journalismhttp://www.cardiff.ac.uk/jomec/degreeprogrammes/pgmasters/mainternationaljournalism/coremodules/index.htmlCardiff’s two-semester program includes the core modules of Information Gathering and Analysis Iand II, which “examine basic business and economic concepts; effective use of figures; how to readand understand public documents (e.g. government papers, company reports); techniques ofinterviewing for writing and research; the techniques employed by investigative journalists and theethical and legal issues they sometimes raise.” This program also has an optional half-module that– 5 –