Enrolment of first year students in journalism leaps up by 30% in 1979. Why?
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"Possibly because the Information scandal has made journalism seem like a glamorous profession." At least this is the opinion of Journalism staff who compare the jump in numbers with a similar phenomenon at journalism schools in the United States after Watergate.
Of course, the increase may also be linked to the growing reputation of the Rhodes department, the only one of its kind at an English-language university in South Africa.
Bulletin, 1979 (2): 3
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Do you know this man?
Guy Butler
What motivated you to start a Journalism Department at Rhodes?
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PROF BUTLER: My interest in establishing journalism as a university discipline is tied up with several things. One is the accident of birth - I came from a family of journalists. I believe in the press and its role - especially the role of the press in South Africa, where it has propagated and attempted to maintain the democratic tradition and certain values which I hold to be very important. It is one of the major contributions the English-speaking community has made to the country as a whole. It seemed to me that it needed more men trained in the increasing complexities of their task. As Harvey Tyson, editor of The Star, said recently:
"The first requisite for a journalist is that he should be a master of the language in which he writes."
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Another belief was that journalists should be trained in the rigours of accurate reporting, in the most scrupulous regard for people involved in public issues, the avoidance of character assassination and all the dubious vices of propaganda. Papers should aim at the sober truth rather than daily doses of shocking revelations and sensational discoveries.
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Do you think the Department has been a success?
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PROF BUTLER: That is a question for the profession to answer. I hear good reports of many of our products. I have raised an eyebrow from time to time, but more at the antics of some journalism students than the Department, which has no doubt had its growing pains. Nothing has happened to change my view that journalists are among the most important members of our society, and need sound training.
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How did you set about starting the Department?
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PROF BUTLER: In 1967 I interviewed many senior editors and managers in large and small centres. They gave me the benefit of experienced advice, and of their hopes and doubts. I would not have presented ahead without their encouragement. I then put forward proposals to Arts Faculty and Senate.
Voice
What role did the department play?
This interview with Guy Butler was conducted in October 1979 and published in a special supplement of Bulletin under the title 'Journalism not a hack trade' pg. 2-3.
How were they received?
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PROF BUTLER: Coldly, as I expected. Many colleagues felt that journalism was a hack job which anybody could pick up, or that journalists were a rather poor species who should be kept off campus. This was not true to my experience of the press. I argued that it was inconsistent to give a university training to teachers and not to journalists, and quoted a find paragraph from a great South African judge, Sir James Rose-Innes: "Two great professions, teaching and journalism, have this in common - that they both occupy privileged positions, the former because of its enormous influence upon the plastic mind of the child, the latter because of its function of purveying news to children of a larger growth. The due discharge of professional duty in each case requires a high standard of honour, a recognition of what is owed to the public, and a resolve that, under no circumstances, shall truth be knowingly and heedlessly defaced."
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