Syllabus

Africa Media’s environmental and travel journalism syllabus is based on a combination of tutored workshops and practical expeditions to explore, research and write articles for publication on local and international media platforms.

Start your journey

Week 1: Orientation & introduction

– Orientation to Mossel Bay and the program

– Intro to journalism and journalistic writing styles

– Narrative writing workshop and assessment

– Guided edits and personalised learning system creation

– Intro to ethics, standards and practices

– This week involves an expedition to the Point area of Mossel Bay

Week 2: Putting practices into practice

– Tutorial: Rewriting and Editing

– Guided and self-guided edits of previous submissions

– Tutorial: Interviewing techniques – what are they?

– Research – Conduct research on two individuals and prep for mock
interview.

– Practical – Writing and submission of Interview 1 + 2

Week 3: Becoming a journalist

– Tutorial: Travel Writing

– Research – Conduct research on specific upcoming expeditions

– Expeditions – Various different expeditions and a lot of travel writing and logging

– Practical – Writing, submission and editing of articles

Week 4: What Africa has shown me

– Tutorial: Environmental Journalism

– Research and prep for final piece

– Self-led interviews and source finding

– Practical – Writing, submission and editing of EVJ piece

EXPEDITIONS

The garden route region of South Africa is widely renowned for its diversity of reserves, sanctuaries tourism attractions and research institutes. Expeditions will travel to different venues to allow you to visit the organisations upon which your stories are based. Specific regions that we may investigate for stories include:

Plettenberg Bay,
Knysna,
Oudtshoorn,
George,
Mossel Bay,
Port Elizabeth,
Albertinia,
Sedgefield,
Wilderness.