Confessions to the torture of a journ student

By John Vries
The dream of being a journalist had become partly a reality when i was accepted to study journalism at Rhodes University. I chose journalism because of my passion to inform the uninformed and to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.

At first i thought this was going to be one easy task, since i had already worked at a newspaper and radio station and what could be easier and more interesting than Journalism and Media studies. Yes, i was uninformed on all the challenges that i would have to face on my journey of becoming not only a journalist, but in becoming an excellent journalist because just about any person can be a journalist. I'm almost through my first year of Journalism and Media studies and it was definitely not a very pleasant walk in the park, because not only was the academic load hard to bear but the life of being a student in general was overwhelming. To make it all worse my views of a flawless media world was shattered to pieces by my lecturers as they began to shape my mind and grind my instincts to think like an excellent journalist.

Confessions of a Journ student is a blog where the basic idea of what a journalism student's life looks like, what they have to go through in the process and formation of good journalist, but also good global citizens. Our group also wants to set a platform through this blog where journalist and journalism students share their views o the progress of journalism and where academic reading material and other books pertaining journalism is discussed in order to broaden our views on the world through a journalistic lens. By doing this we are trying to save one of the most important professions that is threatened by extinction through the development of electronic devices and other technological devices. Basically what we want to do is to use the devices such as cellular phones, computer designed programmes such as Microsoft and Twitter, that is threatening our mere existence as journalist and make our work easier and shape ourselves to be better media workers.

In this blog we as the journalism community will be discussing theories and ideas of the great thinkers in the media world such as John Thompson, Manuel Castells, Jane Feuer and many others. The reason for this because the material you read helps you to establish your character and view on certain subjects, but it is also the bases on which many people base their arguments and reasoning. Therefore debates relating reading material, especially material concerning journalism Will take place on this blog.

Confessions of a Journ Student will therefore become the place where journalist and journalism students mould and grind each other through opinions, ideas and advise to become perfect journalist.