Broadening Horizons: Putting Theory into Practice for a Student Newspaper
Wanja Njuguna, University of Botswana, Botswana
History of University of Botswana’s Media Studies Department
The University of Botswana’s Media Studies Department (MSD) was started in 2002.
The department, the first of its kind in the country, was to fill a training vacuum for
journalists across the nation.
MSD started with five main streams – Print, Radio, TV & Video, Public Relations and
Cinema. However, Cinema did not survive for long as it was discovered that most of the
students that registered for it were from other departments and only took them as General
Education Courses. With a forthcoming Visual Arts and Culture department, Cinema
may be re-introduced into the MSD.
The programs in the department are both practical and theoretical and therefore highly
intensive. Students are expected to write, read, observe and discuss constantly the media
as they see and use it. High standards of commitment to the programme and absolute
professionalism with deadlines and well presented assignments are some of the goals
expected of the students.
Whereas the department started off small, it has since grown to its current 100 plus
students. In 2006, its first graduates received a Bachelor in Media Studies degree and
thereafter, every year, the numbers have slightly increased.
The department’s practical courses in print journalism, television and video, radio
production, script writing and public relations management and writing offer students
exciting channels for their artistic, creative and imaginative production and writing
projects.
In Line with University of Botswana Mission
The aim of UB Horizon, an intentional learning tool, is to provide practical print
journalism and thereby fill a training vacuum in the journalism industry in the country, it
was further to fulfill the University’s fulfillment of its mission by offering “quality
academic and professional programmes that ensure a commitment to and a mastery of
life-long learning skills as well as encouraging a spirit of critical enquiry. It also does this
through developing a student-centered, intellectually stimulating and technologically
advanced teaching, learning and research environment and thus producing graduates who
are independent, confident, self directed, critical thinkers, professionally competent,
reflective practitioners, innovative, socially responsible and thereby marketable and
competitive nationally and internationally.”
The birth of UB Horizon
With practical experience in mind, the idea of starting UB Horizon newspaper was
mooted. The newspaper was envisioned to be the department’s most powerful journalism
teaching tool, providing students with real, hands-on journalism experience on deadline
that will qualify them for media jobs after graduation. It was also serve to strengthen the
university as a whole by providing fair, balanced and accurate news to the UB
community of students and staff.
The newspaper would help the print media students practice what they had learnt in
theory in courses such as beat reporting, health, science & technical reporting, business,
finance and tourism reporting, editing, feature and magazine writing, and investigative
reporting. Other courses that were to benefit from the newspaper were media
management, desktop publishing and advertising. The media management course would
provide market research and monitoring for the paper, the desktop publishing course
would aid the newspaper with design work, while the advertising course would help get
adverts for the newspaper. Whereas the students would not be paid for their work, those
who got adverts for the paper would be paid a 10% commission.
MSD partnered with the McGee Foundation, a U.S. private foundation dedicated to
promoting sound journalistic practices in Southern Africa, in its efforts to build an
excellent journalism education center. Until last year when the recession affected the
foundation enormously, it used to send at least one fellow every other semester. The
fellow would be a seasoned professional in his or her field and he or she would teach
journalism skills and provide general assistance to the department. For the establishment
of the newspaper, the McGee Foundation was dedicated to supporting UB Horizon in the
form of allotting much of the fellows’ time and energy to helping the students in their
publishing efforts.
To start UB Horizon off, much of the initial advisory work was done by Mr. Doug
Cosper, a visiting journalism lecturer from the University of Colarado, Boulder, with
assistance from the McGee Foundation. The paper was to be published three times a
semester except the last month when students are busy with assignments and exams. It
was to be run entirely by students of the Media Studies Department, but with supervision
by departmental staff.
Before the newspaper began, there was a college wide survey run by students in the
Media Management course, to find out whether it was a viable project and if so, what the
students wanted to see in the newspaper. Initially, 364 questionnaires copies were issued.
Every student participant was given 13 questionnaires to distribute. However, at the end,
only 310 were eligible. The papers were spread to different departments - humanities, 24
%, education – 18%, law 1%, business – 17%, science – 11%, journalism – 1%, social
sciences - 19% and others – 1%. Among the final copies, 275 were to students, and 35 to
non students while 235 were undergraduates and 40 graduates.
The questions asked involved the type of media preferred – internet, radio, TV,
magazines, newspapers. TV and newspapers were the most preferred. The survey also
looked at reading tendencies in descending order emerged as political news, sports,
advertising, gossip, crime, economic news, cartoons, fashion/style, editorial/opinion
pieces, scientific/health/environmental issues and cultural features. From this survey, the
paper decided to give the following prominence in descending order: student politics,
academic issues, social problems on campus, economic issues, admin & management
issues, school gossip, sports news, local advertising, academic staff issues,
editorial/opinion pieces, off campus effects affecting UB, cultural effects, UB support
staff issues, off campus events not affecting UB, others (religion).
Following the survey, it was a agreed that the UB Horizon would be a 16-page, full-color
tabloid published monthly during the academic calendar and although it would publish
under the supervision of the MSD, it would strive to be a truly independent voice for the
students and staff. Students were to generate the stories and photographs in the
department’s journalism classes and beyond, participate in story editing, design and lay
out the newspaper and design and maintain a web site, sell the advertising space that
eventually would sustain it, distribute the paper and manage the business. It was agreed
that the UB Horizon would not imitate a real newspaper but will be unique. It would
carry news stories relevant to students and staff including sports, politics, feature stories
related to student life and arts and entertainment. It would have a full editorial page
including student-written editorials, cartoons, letters to the editor and guest opinions.
Starting as a 16 page tabloid, the newspaper was to serve a 15,000 and 1000 student and
staff clientele respectively. The first issue which hit the college streets on March 21st,
2007, targeted the celebration of 25 years of existence of the university as well as the
fifth birthday of the department. While the initial issue was free, the second issue was
sold for P2 in the college and a number of newsstands in the super markets. The
experience of the sale however was not good. Out of 3000 copies, only 900 were sold and
many of the initial advertisers threatened to withdraw their ads and the editorial board
decided to distribute it free but seek strong adverts to help run it.
For advertising, the editorial board decided to charge the following rates: full page
P2,240, half page – P1,120, quarter page, P560, eighth – P280, inserts P650. The design
team was to design ads if and when requested by an advertising company.
Theory into Practice: Challenge I
Whereas the newspaper was started to help convert theory into practice, the fact that
those who wrote, designed or advertised for the newspaper did so on a voluntary basis
without any incentive, except seeing their bylines on the newspaper and for the
advertising team, getting commissions whether the ads money was paid or not, the
challenge of voluntary work soon became problematic.
Students would promise to deliver articles, work in the design team or get ads but if they
had a lot of class work too, their class work took priority and delivery for Horizon took a
back seat. We reached a point where I was literally begging to get the newspaper moving
from writers, to designers to advertising. The advertising team was the worst. They had
realized that the paper actually depended on them for survival and they started calling the
shots. As I tried to bring professionalism into the newspaper, I started putting in a few
rules here and there. For example, to ensure the advertisers were delivering their
payments, I made it clear that the commissions would only be paid after a cheque was
delivered. That did not augur well with the advertising team. At one point, they ganged
up and arrogantly stormed into my office and made it clear they were too busy to look for
ads. That was the month the newspaper was printed with only one single ad – an ad that a
computer company customer had signed a contract for a year to appear on page three.
The only way we were able to publish that month was the fact that we had a relationship
with the publisher, Mmegi Publishers, where we were able to publish a newspaper
without paying up front.
However, the rule on advertising was to prove a plus as I stuck to it and the money
started coming in as the advertising team actually enjoyed the extra income this brought
in but with time, the team decided they had to be begged to get adverts. I realized this
was going to continue and consulted with some members of the editorial team and my
supervisor and we talked to a company, Simply Marketing which had, a few months
earlier, asked if they could partner with us in advertising and distribution. However, the
person who had come up with the idea had left the company and this had to be put on
hold. As we struggled to come up with another strategy to deal with advertising, we
decided to talk to the company and see if the idea would interest them.
After several meetings that included lawyers etc, a new partnership began in Septermber
2008 and is to run until end of academic year, 2011. In the new partnership, we were to
produce the stories, and the company was to get adverts, market the newspaper, publish
and distribute.
Challenge II: Deportation of a Print Lecturer
Part of the understanding in the partnership with Mcgee Foundation was that a full time
lecturer with vast experience in print journalism would be able to run the newspaper at
some point. It was with this in mind that I was recruited. I started coordinating and
editing the newspaper in January 2008. However, running UB Horizon and teaching three
courses became a very load. UB Horizon on its own is similar to teaching three courses.
MSD therefore advertised for an extra print media lecturer to assist the incumbent
lecturer. A seasoned journalist from Zimbabwe was employed and this provided a great
avenue to help the print journalists to learn their skills fully. But before the lecturer could
settle down into working in the print media department, he ran into problems with the
Botswana government and in his second month of work in MSD, he was deported back to
Zimbabwe and the section was back to square one. It was not until almost a year later that
the department was able to hire another print lecturer only to realize that he did not have
newsroom but more journalism theoretical experience. However, with time, he is slowly
catching on and learning how a newspaper runs.
Challenge III: Problems with Simply Marketing Advertising Company
When MSD got into partnership with Simply Marketing, we had not realized that due to
an influential board member in the company, (also a powerful ruling party politician), we
had not envisaged that the choice of some of our stories would run into censorship
problems. In particular, in one issue during the second month of the partnership, the
company decided to remove some stories which they thought would anger the
government and college leadership. The stories were removed without informing us and
the students got to know about it when the newspaper was published. It is believed that
some of them called the MISA (Botswana chapter) and the information got into other
media including being broadcast on the private radio stations. The Simply Marketing
management were very angry and called an urgent meeting threatening to get out of the
partnership. During the meeting, we insisted on sticking to the initial agreement where
there would be no censorship and if the company was unhappy with a story or picture,
they informed us in advance without taking matters into their own hands.
A shaky partnership
While the partnership was a financial relief so that we could concentrate on soliciting for
stories and design, the voluntary work in getting stories and design work started
becoming nightmare. Other academic work took precedence and Horizon work would
take a back seat, as there was no great incentive to write or design for the newspaper. It
was with this in mind and in order to really get students practicing writing as a whole in
the print courses that we decided to fully incorporate the writing of stories into the Print
Courses’ assessment.
Starting this semester, I worked out a percentage – 45% out of 100% for the semester
across the three newspapers printed during the semester. The stories are marked by the
lecturer as an assignment but the electronic copy of the same is given to the student
editors to edit. A deadline for the stories/assignment is given and this has at least ensured
the stories come on time and any, including columns, that do not beat the deadline are not
used. The challenges of doing this has been that students have to share up to four bylines
and it is up to them to learn partnership skills so as to present the best stories. For every
group, it is required that the students say who did which work towards the story.
There are many other challenges that I will highlight during the conference as I seek
advice from those who have done it better so that we can ensure we produce the best print
journalists we can in Botswana.
Lessons Learned
1. My experience in a commercial newspaper in Nairobi never prepared me for what
I encountered at UB running a newspaper. I wish that at UB, we would have
received adequate exposure to running a student newspaper from others who have
done it successfully before we started.
2. When you start a student newspaper, you need to know where the money to run
the newspaper will come from on a continuous basis.
3. If it is to be a student learning tool, there are two options – either you incorporate
it into the curriculum to be assured of stories, design and advertising where
students are compensated through marks right from the beginning. The other
option is to ensure the college finances the newspaper fully so that you minimize
your problems of printing, distribution and news desk communications.
4. Since 90 per cent of the students in the college are sponsored by the government,
we are hoping that the issue of the college financing the newspaper will be
accepted in line with the vision, mission and values of the university.
5. The many crises that the UB Horizon has faced have helped our students realize
that the world of work is difficult and also that, apart from the obvious factors of
skills and resources, there are many economic, political and social factors which
impact upon the production of a newspaper.