Investigative Internet Journalism- The Second Day

The day began as planned at around 9:00 am. at Mbeya. The participant participated fully as the topic of the day was so engaging and really practical one.

Participants in the workshop were familiarized with how to go about doing the Investigative Internet Journalism which includes knowing what you want, monitoring other news cites local and international and also to be keen in choosing the right search.

What was more interesting for the day was the fact that the mode of lecturing was so engaging and gave the participants time to exercise more and familiarize themselves with the do’s and don’ts of the internet search.

The most interesting part also was the exercise whereby the participants did enough exercise including searching of phone numbers of important figures in the world and how to search for a specific information via narrowing the search and this went hand in hand with the key exercise which was guided by instructions on how to search, investigate and then come up with a story in the internet.

Key issues included, structuring the story in the mind and deciding what is relevant for the narrative you are about to work on. Also the importance of using one’s own words in the work was of paramount importance and adding quotes whenever necessary.

Other key issues to adhere to was to make sure that you spend more time on the investigation of what you want to publish than on writing it and this must be accompanied by planning the story into narrative chunks and most importantly putting in human interest in the story.

First day of Training on Investigative Internet Journalism in OUT - Mbeya Branch

The training session began at around 10 am with the introductions from all the participants explaining who where are they and where are they from that is, their work station, specializations and most importantly, the expectations of each participant was crucial.

In the first day, I learned some of important things pertaining to Internet Journalism that one needs to know before getting in to serious business.

I learned the basic steps towards creating a blog especially if you have your Google mail account already in which you simply go to Blogger and then enter into your account and then command ‘create new blog. More importantly, I learned briefly how investigative reporting may use internet.

Moreover, I further learned that you may sometimes receive or required to receive a confirmation code as the provider may want to prove that you are real human being and not a robot! This is done after you have been requested to enter or reveal your mobile number and you will be called to be given that confirmation code.

Once you enter that code the work will continue to the next stage which is to create the blog and then you may view.

In this first day of training http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbeya I liked the way our Facilitator took us step by step with clear explanation and emphasis on each important step towards accomplishing this first day objectives.

I am afraid that I am not in a position to say that I disliked any of what has been taking place in the first day, to me all were meaningful and each step and contributions from other participants meant a lot to the workshop.

What I can say that I learned is that, everything is possible once you follow the proper procedures and steps towards accomplishing any task that is what happened and I managed to understand what Investigative Internet Journalism is.

Some of the concrete examples about research assignments, search tips or discussion in class may include among other things the fact that even in the face book, one can find important tip to make some follow up.

Training on Investigative Internet Journalism

My name is Mr. Aloyce G. Mohamed, a Journalism Instructor from the University of Iringa formerly known as Tumaini University-Iringa University College. This institution is a Christ centered. I work under the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in the Department of Journalism.

Professionally, I am a journalist specialized in Photojournalism and currently work as a Journalism Instructor in the Journalism Department which I currently am holding the position of the Head of the Department.

The University has five faculties namely

1.Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) with three departments, Department of Journalism,  Department of Cultural Anthropology and Tourism and the Department of Community Development.

2. Faculty of Education (FASE) with the Departments of Mathematics and Language.

3. Faculty is Psychology

4. Faculty of Theology

5. Faculty of Business (FABEC).

All the faculties offer from certificate, Diploma, First Degree and Masters Degree. It was founded way back in the 1994 as a Lutheran College.

In this training on the Investigative Interment Journalism that is being conducted here in the Open University of Tanzania- Mbeya organized by MISA-TAN and Vikes- The  Finish Foundation for Media Development, I expect to gain a lot of knowledge on issues pertaining to Investigative Internet Journalism including important search engines, tools towards easy access to important information in the internet that you may not find them easily without prior knowledge that is expected to be offered in this training.

More importantly, I expect to gain more knowledge that will assist me in guiding my students back in class especially on how to access important information, current issues, history and equip them with the ability to be more informed on what is happening in the world, to be critique and have good background information in every event they cover and help them to write and report effectively as it is the fact that an informed journalist or reporter is an effective communicator of information he or she gathers for the public.