WSU STUDENTS PROGRESSING WELL AT PUBLISHING MEDIA OUTLETS

Public Relations (PR) lecturer Mkhululi Grawe has recently reported an impressive and improved publishing rate of news articles for mainstream media houses by their Advanced Diploma students.

This year, fifty-four percent of PR students were able to get their work published, with eighteen out of thirty-three getting published with newsletter companies, whereas in previous years, two or three out of thirty students would be able to get their articles published .

“The observation came from an assignment I designed to familiarise the students with what is expected by the media world and media organisations by exposing them to journalistic writing which requires them to follow the 5W’s and H (What, When, Where, Who, Why and How) approach. This is fundamental in training students to report news using short simple sentences and paragraphs,” said Grawe.

Community newsletters such as the Aliwal Weekblad, The Reporter, Port Saint John’s newspaper took the honor of publishing these students’ work. The national newspaper, ‘Isolezwe’, published three thirds of these students’ articles, that being the most publisher of this group’s articles.

He further elaborates that since he initiated this assignment in 2021, his students struggled to get the articles published. Students would end up submitting their articles to him, but now they are getting the momentum of his objectives, Graweis looking towards achieving a hundred percent result in the upcoming years, for it is important to blend the student curriculum work with real world experiences.

By Amthandile Mlonyeni