Companies

11 graduate from Nation Media Group training school

nmg

Nation Media Group Media Lab graduands celebrate after receiving their certificates during a graduation ceremony at the Aga Khan University in Westlands, 9 West Building, in Nairobi on June 21, 2016. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL

Eleven journalists Tuesday graduated from the Nation Media Group’s training school, the Media Lab.

The 11 drawn from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania graduated after a rigorous three-month training programme at the Aga Khan University Graduate School of Media and Communications in Nairobi.

The graduates also got practical newsroom experience at the Nation with particular focus on telling stories on multi-media platforms.

This was the seventh class to receive comprehensive training in print, digital and broadcast media since the Media Lab was started. Trainers were drawn from the NMG newsrooms, academics and seasoned global journalists.

The fresh graduates will be attached to the NMG’s digital, print and broadcast platforms across the region.

Speaking at the graduation ceremony, chief executive Joe Muganda said Nation Media Group would continually invest in improving the capacity of its journalists to respond to the fast-changing news gathering environment.

“We will win on content and we know it must be multi-media. We are keen on equipping our journalist with the relevant capacity such as we have done today,” said Mr Muganda, adding that convergence journalism had become inevitable in a fast-changing world that has gone largely digital.

He urged the graduates to take with them lessons inculcated under the programme to improve the general standards of journalism in the region.

NMG Editor-in-Chief Tom Mshindi said the African media must competitively tell the stories that matter to an increasingly demanding and complex audience.

“There is a tremendous amount of information that needs to be told …but also told in a way that helps citizens in the region make sense of their environment,” he said.

Mr Mshindi urged the trainees to uphold traditional journalistic values such as truth, fairness and independence so as to accord the profession the respect it deserves.

Aga Khan Graduate School of Media and Communications founding dean Michael Meyers said the graduands had shown great promise and were well placed to execute their roles.

Each of the 11 trainees had been partnered with a long-serving NMG journalist as a mentor.

The NMG, which is East Africa’s largest multi-media firm, has a strong presence in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda.

The Aga Khan University boasts internationally acclaimed professionals in its team of lecturers.

They include Mr Meyers, formerly of Newsweek, associate dean Rhonda Breit, Stephen Buckley, previously with the Washington Post and Andrew Tkach who has over 25 years’ experience producing documentaries and TV reports for companies such as the CNN and the National Geographic.