By Mutale Kapekele (The Post, Zambia)
Johannesburg, 25 March, 2011 - African business journalists have often struggled with skills development, especially with many media organisations’ failure to provide continued training.
On March 21 2011, a group of 16 business reporters from five Southern African countries met in Johannesburg, South Africa, for a week-long testing of their reporting skills at the invitation of the Thomson Reuters Foundation in collaboration with the Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation (NORAD).
With veteran journalists David White and Nicholas Kotch leading the way, the team navigated through the best ways of reporting capital flight, the stock market, and currencies among other topics.
For Annaleigh Vallie of South Africa’s Business Day, the course was timely and brought out new issues that she would previously ignore.
"Capital flight was not something I had thought about," she says. "The course definitely illuminated the topic for me. In future I will definitely be looking out for stories of this nature."
Zimbabwe’s Daily News reporter, Roadwin Chirara, hoped that journalists across the continent would report more on capital flight.
"Judging from what we heard during the course, the issue of capital flights has proved to be a common occurrence in many developing countries," he said.
Brian Mwale of Zambia’s Muvi Television thought the course was "very helpful in enhancing business writers’ skills."
Brian says he personally found the lessons on covering stock markets and mergers interesting.
“For me personally there are areas such as the stock market and mergers which I have not been reporting on because of little understanding,” he says.
“Coming together with media practitioners from different walks of life and cultural backgrounds is cardinal as I feel it has helped me increase my knowledge of how things are being done in other countries and how the concerned journalists are conquering the challenges."
Participants represented Botswana, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
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