A most humble reflection

By the end of the third term, I was filled with theoretical observations of Journalism, drilled to my head by the endless readings on the subject I had encountered this year. I thought I could not write stuff involving journalism on my terms, and I could no longer write in first person in my time at university. I thought that I was a robotic journalism student, drilled with theory and without a personality.

Upon realising that I was about to partake in a Blogging course for Journalism, I thought that I was going to finally step away from the theoretical teachings I had encountered through the year. I did not think that the course would go away from academic work, but the students would be blogging using further new stringent theories on the subject. As the term progressed, I was amazed at how all that I have learnt at Journalism this year, contributed immensely to the manner in which I wrote my blog posts. From the planning stages of each entry, I would think of which news values I was going to employ in my post, and what genre I was going to write on. I was enthused at witnessing the poignancy of my letter to my younger self, where I managed to balance raw emotion with the characteristics of the letter genre. The blogging course served as confirmation on how I had grasped the teachings in Journalism this year, and how I was able to adapt and interpret these teachings to my opiniative writing.

The experience of blogging for a full term made me quite productive. I tried to make time to add blog posts, but I did not make as many entries as I would have liked, due to the demands of my other subjects. This did not deter me from blogging, as even when I did not have anything to write, I would be streaming on other blogs, finding out what my Journalism classmates were writing about. I would also spend quite some time looking for ways to improve the quality of my group blog. These activities show how enthusiastic I have been about this course. The thrill of creating something meaningful,and of seeing the fruits created by myself, my blog group, and my other classmates elevated to a wider audience - a global internet community, got me very excited about this blogging course. As the term progressed, I saw the need to create my own personal blog. I saw that the main characteristics and intentions of my group blog were too narrow for the things I was thinking, and I needed my own blog to castrate all my thoughts, and to ensure that my blogging experience does not end this term.

The primary fixture of the Blogging course has been group work. I have noted the dissatisfaction of some students on the idea of group work, but I accepted this challenge, as it serves as training for our futures years at tertiary and in the working environment. Group work is a permanent practice in the workplace, as one will continuously be working with other people, and in the home environment, group work is an essential skill should one decide to venture into a long-term relationship, or start a family. With all the problems, delays and different opinions shown by my blog group during the course, and the patience and understanding we had to adopt, I can confirm in my humblest opinion that the Blogging course served as a means of personal growth for me, as I forced myself to maintain my patience and control my temperament during difficult times within my group. I have also come to value the practice of group work, as different opinions from different personalities, can turn to create a masterful piece of work, as was the case in the photo comic of my group. Despite their being many stressful encounters within the group, from a struggle to find a common agreement on certain aspects of the group, to the pressures of doing group assignments, I shall miss working with my group mates, as I came to appreciate the different sensibilities of each member of my group.

The question of whether blogging is journalism or not is one which has been placed before the JMS 1 students numerous times through the term, and I think that it does not warrant a debate. With the expansion of major newspapers to online technology, and various columnists expressing their journalistic work through blogs, I am under the impression that blogging is journalism. Sure, the largest share of bloggers are probably not journalists, and are just members of the public, who vary in their professions, but they all are reporting on issues which have struck them, which they feel could be relevant to other people. I interpret journalism as being just that, and the spread of such writing on the internet, not only reveals journalistic work to a wider audience, but also increases the number of those partaking in journalistic practice.

The culmination of researching items which may relate to my posts, finding sources, and putting a post together, has summed up the journalistic experience for me. Although I did not do too much research for the majority of my posts, I made sure that I had the correct sources as a point of reference to my blog posts. This enabled me not to break ethical grounds by plagiarising my work, and not to produce offensive blog post, which would incriminate people. I fostered much insight in this process of gathering information, and verifying it for my posts, and this contributed in my continued growth on this subject.

The JMS Blogging course was an appropriate way to end off my first year of doing journalism. I realised how I used all that I have learnt this year in producing dignified and presentable work on my blog With the great demands this course had, regarding submission deadlines and blog posting, and the joy of creating an online tool, visible to a wide audience, made this cause the most suitable teaching of surviving first year.

Mpondz