SECTOR 4 4.7 Media professionals have access to training facilities offering formal qualification programmes as well as opportunities to upgrade their skills When it comes to training opportunities in South Africa for media, ‘we are spoilt for choice’ in terms of formal institutions, while some media houses offered their own training as well. A panellist asked if South African journalists were being properly prepared for podcasting and virtual reality reporting. ‘The way news is absorbed today; the traditional style of presentation is no longer sufficient and we now need to bring it closer to the readers through the innovative use of technology.’ It was noted that journalism training courses now teach video editing. ‘We are producing huge numbers of qualified journalists each year and we need to give them as broad a training as possible, or we will lose a lot of very skilled people. They need to be multi-media capable.’ Older journalists were sometimes seen to being resistant to upgrading their own skills from analogue to digital and adopting new technological skills related to social media such as internet and video blogging, for example. ‘Everything now happens on a laptop, but there is some resistance from the older school [of journalists] to move in this direction.’ While Wits University and Rhodes University were seen to be offering broad training in digital journalism as well as traditional print and broadcasting, the University of Stellenbosch was accused of ‘still being stuck in the old [traditional] style’. The University of Cape Town and the University of KwaZulu-Natal were noted for having interesting photojournalism courses which were combined with graphic design courses to give broader training. Wits also has a mid-year, two-week digital media course, with people from the industry itself conducting practical training. It was noted that there were still disadvantaged universities in South Africa which did not have the resources to accommodate the digital changes affecting the media and ‘the state is not coming to assist’. ‘There is a ridiculous infatuation with print, with people stuck in the old mindset. Even some of the schools of journalism have lecturers stuck on these outdated models.’ Technical training for new broadcasting equipment tended to be provided internally at the broadcasters. ‘The proliferation of technology impacts on labour, however. People were employed under certain conditions and then with new equipment, they need 58 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER SOUTH AFRICA 2018