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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Technology
Typewriters, laptops, light tables and Adobe
Voice
Voice
Simon Pamphilon, journalism student in the 1980s and currently design lecturer in the department, retraces tales of working late Rhodeo nights on equipment like this light table - very different to the digital printing, scanning, formatting and designing journalism students are using today. This light table was used at the risk of getting your thumb sliced!
The 1980s was a slow technological decade and the department was still using old-fashioned manual typewriters. But when Cue was started in 1987 it was full speed ahead. The department was then one of the first places in the country with a full DTP set-up, on the heels of the Weekly Mail. They lured journalists to write for Cue by being a learning centre where they could find out how to use the new systems. "What was very insulting was the students saying to us that they learnt more in 10 days of Cue than in four years of classroom study! But we had a lot of fun," says Gavin Stewart [i].
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Individuals remark that by the end of the decade it felt like a new era was dawning. At that stage the department had effective television gear and more than 50 computers, and by the mid 1990s the department carried about R3-million worth of television, radio, photographic and computer-based equipment [ii].
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Local Area Network (LAN)
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An air-conditioned 28-workstation LAN was operational for the journalism department in the mid 1990s. The LAN was reserved for classes during formal lecture periods but keyboard literacy was encouraged to all "aspirant communicators and media workers" [iii]. In the 1995 Student Handbook the LAN is described as a Novell/DOS system with a typing tutor, spread sheet, word processor, virus protection and disk management utilities. "It runs off a file-server dubbed "Thoth" in honour of the Egyptian god of writing: a sacred ibis. Two dot matrix printers are provided," [iv].
DOES ANY OF THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?
The Internet
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In the mid 1990s the Internet in the journalism department was in its infancy. In the LAN students could access Internet facilities like email, Trumpet Network News Reader, Tel-net, FTP and Gopher services; local, national and international connections. But, further electronic research and archive facilities like the World Wide Web and electronic magazine publishing services were only set to be introduced during 1995.
Keyboard literacy
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Although what was once seen as a new model of literacy has now encompassed our lives in multiple ways (digital literacy, computer literacy, internet literacy), in the mid 90s "keyboard literacy" was encouraged in the department as being vitally important for all aspirant communicators and media workers.
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1995
New computers
Seven new 486 PCs each with CD ROM attachments and IFinch VGA colour screens have replaced the old equipment. One of the old machines with a new IFinch screen provides an eighth workstation... All the machines run Wordperfect 6.0, Quark Express 3.31, Coreldrawn 5.0 and Multimedia [v].
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With the aid of sponsorships, photojournalism finally got a new HQ with two film processing rooms and two darkrooms that were installed with 14 enlargers. In addition, there's a studio equipped with tungsten lights and electronic flash as well as medium and large format cameras [vi]
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1996
Journalism students began having options of studying intensive courses in online research and electronic publishing skills from third-year onwards. This was mostly due to a Times Media Limited (TML) grant that enabled the Rhodes Journalism Department to intensify its internet teaching and research for a three-year position of TML Director of New Media Studies (based in the department). These skills were very quickly becoming essential for any graduate seeking work in the media and communications [vii].
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1998
In 1998 the Reuters foundation contributed R300 000 towards setting up a newsroom training environment in the department with a new facility that would set up 40 high-end computers and access to Reuters online information services.
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This "Reuters Newsroom" had the objective of simulating a real-world newsroom to train both entry-level and working journalists at Rhodes while providing a space for Computer-Assisted Reporting and Research.
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At the time, Anthea Garman head of the print teaching cluster and now deputy head of department and Writing & Editing lecturer, contrasted the new facility with available lab space at the time highlighting, "At present there are 140 students at second-year level who do a core course in reporting, writing and editing for a term. The existing laboratory they use is based on 25x seven-year old PC-XTs, which have no hard-drives with insufficient memory to run Windows software programmes," [viii].
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Garman highlighted the critical importance of this kind of newsroom and laboratory because students had to be able to do Internet research, email working journalists (as sources and mentors) and had to have constant access to a space where they could file and edit stories they are working on. Janet Carr, who was teaching internet research techniques to senior students at the time, had to squeeze her classes into a tight schedule between Computer Science and Information Systems in a non-dedicated lab.
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2001
In 2000 the department purchased studio cameras, videotape decks, control room monitors and studio lights. The equipment cost R1,000,000 (at professional net prices at the time) and for the first time, the Rhodes broadcasting studio had the kind of equipment needed for live-to-tape broadcasts and live-to-live broadcasts. Previously they had to borrow equipment [ix].
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SOURCES
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i / Stewart, G. 2004. "Special Edition", Grocott's Mail, July 3rd.
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ii / Student Handbook. 1995. Published by Rhodes University Journalism and Media Studies Department, p. 4.
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iii / ibid, p. 4.
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iv / ibid, p.4.
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v / Journalism Quarterly. 1995. New Computers. 2(1): 2.
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vi / Journalism Quarterly. 1995. New Photojourn HQ. 2(3): 2.
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vii / Journalism Quarterly. 1996. Times Media Limited Sponsors new Internet studies lectureship. 3(3): 1.
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viii / Journalism Quarterly. 1998. Reuters gets students a real newsroom. August, 4(2): 6.
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ix / Journalism Quarterly. 2001. Sparing no expense. 7(1): 1
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