By Remy Raitt

“It’s a hard question,” says The Witness news editor, Steph Saville, “I know journalists who never studied but are brilliant, and one’s that did study that aren’t that great.” She says it’s dependant on the person and that some elements of the profession can’t be taught. “I think you have to have certain innate qualities. But, if I was giving advice, I would encourage the person to study because it orients you in the profession.”

Degrees are drawcards

Eyewitness News journalist Phumlani Pikoli agrees. Pikoli did not complete his media degree and although he sees value in university training he doesn’t believe it’s a “prerequisite”. “But obviously it would be advantageous,” he says.  He speaks with specific regard to the underlying guidelines of the profession. “When it comes to journalism there are ethics and codes to abide by,” he says. “But I don’t think it’s so strict that you couldn’t learn those on your own.”

HOD of the University of Johannesburg (UJ) Journalism, Film and Television department, Ylva Rodny-Gumede is absolute in her belief that a degree in journalism is crucial, and she says it’s not just her position at UJ that spurs this opinion. She says although it’s not impossible for journalists to receive all their training within the newsroom, the problem is that most newsrooms do not have all the required resources.

She says another huge draw for journalism degrees is that the university context helps shape the mind of the future media practitioner. She says the auxiliary subjects studied within the student’s BA degree are a “value add”. “Tertiary education offers the broader intellectual engagement journalists really need,” she says.

She believes a journalism degree should focus on a variety of things and should develop with the industry. “The emphasis needs to be on the ethics and on intellectual projects as well as the active citizens in the context of our young democracy.”

Importance of internships

Saville and Rodny-Gumede agree that internships are an integral part of student journalism training. “I don’t think we can train students on what’s actually happening in the newsroom,” Rodny-Gumede says. “We can simulate it and we can give them the proper skills they need but it doesn’t exclude the fact that students need to, at varying points, go into the newsroom. There they have access to things like the power dynamics between the editor and junior journalists. At the university we can talk about it, but’s it’s not until the students enter the newsroom that they will really understand it.”

“The pragmatic part is as important as the academic part,” says Saville. “Anyone considering a career in journalism should be volunteering at a newsroom in their vacations and on the weekends.”

Education needs to be evaluated

In an article for the Rhodes Journalism Review about the challenges of teaching journalism at UJ, Rodny-Gumede writes; “Ultimately, it is industry and the audience that provide quality assurance and evaluation of the quality and relevance of the degree, that said universities are well placed to continuously evaluate and monitor the quality of their degrees and courses through rigorous peer review mechanisms established over extended periods of time.”

She says that if editors and lecturers remain interactive and go back to “dissect and reflect”, the value of the journalism degree will remain intact.


What are your thoughts? Do journalists need a degree to do their jobs properly? Tell us below.