The Nation Media Group (NMG) has launched its seventh class of graduate trainees in partnership with the Aga Khan University. Eleven trainees from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania will take part in the four-month course designed to produce all-round journalists who will be attached to the Group’s digital, print and broadcast platforms.
“In order to have a successful business you must have individuals with capacity to deliver the promise and to that end we will spare no effort to ensure you have the ability to execute your mandate,” said the Nation Media Group chief executive Joe Muganda Monday during the launch of the class.
NMG, which is East Africa’s largest media company, has a strong presence in digital, print and broadcast media. The partnership replaced the inhouse media lab, which trained journalists for the media house but was stopped a few years ago under unclear circumstances. Most of the media lab journalists have since left Nation for greener pastures.
Aga Khan University and Nation Media Group are sister companies owned by the Aga Khan.
Mr Muganda emphasised the ongoing shift towards convergence journalism, where news is first broken on digital platforms for immediate consumption by online readers before more detailed and analytical versions are published in the newspapers. “If we are going to compete with everyone across the world, convergence must be a minimum requirement,” said Mr Muganda.
Also Read >> Two Kenyan journalists taken by Bloomberg after training
NMG Editor-in-Chief Tom Mshindi said convergence journalism had become inevitable in a fast-changing world that has gone largely digital.He urged the trainees to uphold traditional journalistic values such as truth, fairness and independence so as to accord the profession the respect it deserves.
The founding dean of the Aga Khan Graduate School of Media and Communications Michael Meyers said the trainees had a role of holding those in power to account.“You need to ask the questions that need to be asked – that is what we want,” said Mr Meyers.
The Aga Khan University boasts internationally acclaimed professionals in its team of lecturers.
They include Mr Meyers, formerly of Newsweek, Associate Dean Rhonda Breit, Stephen Buckley, previously with the Washington Post and Andrew Tkach who has over 25 years’ experience producing documentaries and TV reports for companies such as the CNN and the National Geographic.
Each of the 11 trainees has been partnered with a long-serving NMG journalist as a mentor. (NATION)
Next Read >> Citizen TV unveils new faces after firing reporters
