Personal Views on Internet Training

The Fifth and Last Day on Internet Training

The fifth and last day of our internet training, the first thing I did was to find online information about the China-Africa trade and investment relations in terms of new facts and figures, areas and African countries where Chinese investors concentrate and finally researched on how local African communities perceive these China-Africa relations. This task was ended –up by writing a story relied on the obtained information.

Then after, we went through various international and regional news websites (in English and Swahili languages) as well as blogs. We also looked at the popular websites for on-line library/books. The aim of this session was basically to give us an insight on those websites and blogs which we might need them and they are helpful in our future journalistic practices. 

Lastly, we learned how to insert an image to the blog.

General Overview and Evaluation of the Training.

Honestly, the training was of an added value to me personally and professionally. It has increased my knowledge and ability to use internet in searching for new information and facts about issues, people, places ect. 

A Good example for this, is the fact that I have been using internet especially Google search engine to search for facts and information, but my participation to this training proved to me that, previously, I was not using Google and internet effectively.

Opening and proper usage of blogs is another valuable knowledge that we acquired in this training.

Now that I have broaden my knowledge on internet usage, It is my wish that I will use and share the knowledge with my colleagues to improve our ways and styles of searching, writing and reporting news, both national and international.

CHINA-AFRICA ECO-TRADE RELATIONS

UNBALANCED CHINA-AFRICA ECONOMIC AND TRADE RELATIONS NEED TO BE REVIEWED FOR ITS SUSTAINABILITY.

An example of Chinese Hydro Initiative in Africa. Picture by PEI (Power Engineering International).

For decades now, the world has witnessed the tremendously China’s economic growth to the extent that the country now is viewed as a threat to the developed countries in western Europe and the US. However, recently, the big debate has been the growth of China with its economic and trade relations with African continent. Africa is the third largest recipient of Chinese foreign Direct Investment behind Asia and Europe, totaling nearly $90 billion.

China’s top African trading partners in 2011 were Algeria, Angola, Nigeria, Egypt, the Republic of Congo, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Morocco, South Africa and Sudan. The Chinese investment priorities to these countries and other in the continent, including Tanzania are directed to energy, transportation and metals as well as mining sectors.

 Many African countries are viewed as fast-growing markets and profitable outlets for the immediate export of cheap manufactured goods, and the future export of high-end products and services.

China has been assisting African countries particularly which are rich in natural resources to implement large-scale structural projects, more often accompanied by a soft loan to fund the construction of infrastructure such as roads and railroads, dams, ports,and airports.

The work still proceeding..................

Wednesday Session

Wednesday was my third day on Internet training. It was a worthy session especially on the usage of Blog. I acquired knowledge on how to link my blog with several other blogs, and other aspect found in the effective and efficiency usage of blog.

Importance of Internet in journalism was another thing that we learned on this day. We thoroughly discussed on how journalist can use internet to search for news, facts or background information on certain issue. We do also had discussion on the techniques in doing journalistic research through or via internet eg. the proper use of google search engine in searching information through internet.

Then finally our session ended up by doing practical exercise in searching online information about  people, places, cities ect.

Newspapers should embrace Internet as a Partner, Not as an Enemy

Media professionals, particularly from newspaper or print media have been challenged to effectively grasp the opportunities brought by the innovation and advancement of Internet rather than perceiving it as a threat to their existence.

Rupert Murdoch, a world media tycoon, posed this challenge when he was addressing to the American Society of Newspapers’ Editors on April 13, 20005. Murdoch raised concern on how internet has changed the way 'dot.com' generation accessing news and the kind of news news they want. Due to that transformation, Murdoch advised the editors whom he referred them as ‘digital immigrants’ to change their mindset toward their newspapers operations and thinking on ways and strategies to partner with internet to maintain the young generation.

He further advised the editors to take utmost advantage of websites by establishing their own and updating them more often to meet the desire of youths as well as establishing a discussion forum within their websites which will provide room to get feedback from readers/audiences.

He went on by saying that newspaper should take internet as a ‘great partner’ too modernize their work by adding audio and video inserts to their online newspapers which will provide better news products and hence attract the so called ‘digital natives’.

DAY 2 AT INTERNET TRAINING

We started by giving  a brief overview on Monday's session. Followed by an interesting topic (to me) which was about opening of blog and uploading information to it.

The third part of our tuesday's session we were tried to highlight on the statistics about internet usage, accessibility (penetration) in different contexts (at the global, regional and country level). The most excited part was when we visited www.alexa.com where we discovered the most/top visited sites globaly and at the country level and it was interesting to the class after we found that social media/networks like facebook and search engine like google are the most visited sites in the east african countries.

Aother thnig which I learned was about the role that internet has played in journalism, the most important been on how internet has changed the way people access news as well as their expectations for news.  Internet also has also been played the role of news' sources.

We also discussed on the challenges that have been brought by internet to traditional media but also we tried to discuss on the possible solution to these challenges; one of them been that of  traditional media (radio, television and newspapers) to develop their own internet strategy like developing their own website to maintain their audiences. We discussed a bit about the speech by Rupert Murdoch to American Association of newspapers editors in 2005

Finally, but not of less important, we discussed on the challenges or factors for internet disparity as well as negative effects of internet, some of them been digital divide, plagiarism, cultural imperialism, security issues and reducing socialization and or level of interaction.

It is my hope that Wednesday's session will be much more fruitful.

Unity we stand as One

Cheers

An Overview on my first day on internet training

I’m Mcharo Mrutu, a senior reporter at Channel Ten. This week, I’m attending five days Internet training for senior journalists for both print and electronic media houses in the country, organized by MISA-Tanzania.

Basically it is my expectations that the training will give me an in-depth knowledge on the effective use of internet in practicing journalism more professionally for cross-checking of facts, communication as well as dissemination of the news.

It is also my expectation that after this training I will be able to use internet to practice e-journalism for- instance through blogging, use of social media and so forth.

During my first day of this training, one of main things that we learned was on how the internet has changed the world; the way individuals and communities work, interact, offer and receive services ect. We also got an opportunity to discuss a little bit on the ongoing politics in Kenya particularly of its general election that is expected to be held on March, 2013.

The thing that I did not like or it was contrary to my expectation is that, we talked much on the usage of internet or how internet can be used to simplify of daily routines, but rather than discussing on relevant example about our country with comparison to the developed or advanced countries in technology, our discussion based on the online services offered in developed countries.

It is of my opinion that while moving on in this training, we should address on how we could use internet to improve our journalism practice under the country’s environment  which is surrounded by lots of challenges including low internet accessibility, little knowledge on computer to the majority of the population, bureaucratic administration ect. By doing so, it's my belief that at the end of this programme we gonna come-up with possible solutions on how we can use internet effectively under such challenges.