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The role that the media can play to facilitate public debate takes centre stage in a special themed issue of Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies 32(3) 2011

With COP 17 now in full swing in Durban and the issue of climate change claiming top of mind awareness in the public domain once more, Rhodes School of Journalism and Media Studies (JMS), and its Highway Africa Centre in particular, have throughout the year been significantly involved both with the summit and current discourse on climate change – with particular focus on climate change coverage by the media.

The School of Journalism and Media Studies Professor Guy Berger has been appointed as the new UNESCO Director of Freedom of Expression and Media Development. Prof Berger said he is excited, somewhat nervous, but also sad to be leaving Rhodes after spending more than 16 fruitful years at his alma mater. The Director of Freedom of Expression and Media Development at UNESCO is a job with a global remit, which will challenge Prof Berger to learn and think more widely than South Africa and Africa. He is expected to start in his new job in Paris in November, at a time when UNESCO will be holding its biennual inter-governmental conference. Prof Berger started working at Rhodes mid 1994 and he headed up the School of Journalism and Media Studies until this year. During that period he has overseen many of the school’s projects such as the New Media Lab, Highway Africa conference and the Sol Plaatje Media Leadership Institute. He also lectured and researched in new media, media policy, convergence and journalism education, and supervised 25 postgraduate theses.

The Right2Know Campaign (R2K), a nation-wide coalition of people and organisations opposed to the Protection of Information Bill – also known as the Secrecy Bill – was launched in Grahamstown recently, with a list of keynote speakers, including veteran struggle activist and Grahamstown College of Divinity Rector, Dr Barney Pityana addressing the local community. Marking the launch, members of the organisation and various grassroots organisations including the Unemployed People's Movement (UPM), Students for Social Justice and the Rural People's Movement met at Raglan Road and marched to the Cathedral in Church Square, before a list of speakers, including Dr Pityana and members of various civil society organisations and academics, addressed the crowd. In his plea to "stop the rot" in South African politics, Dr Pityana, head of the College of the Transfiguration and former Vice-Chancellor at the University of South Africa (UNISA), encouraged South Africans to think critically about the implications of the Bill, if it is passed.

Members of the Rhodes community who have enhanced the reputation of the University and served as role models in society were recently honoured at the annual Old Rhodian award ceremony, where three old Rhodians were awarded the Distinguished Old Rhodian Award. The 2011 three award recipients are Mr Connie Molusi, Mrs Judith Bishop and Mrs Margie Keeton. This year' event also saw the launch of the Emerging Old Rhodian Award, given to ex-Rhodians under the age of 40, who are already starting to make an impact in society. This year's Emerging Old Rhodian Award winners were Dr Garth Cambray and Mr Tembeka Ngcukaitobi. On receiving his award, Mr Molusi, who enrolled at Rhodes in 1985 to study a BA in Journalism and Politics and has since become a leading figure in South African media, holding the position of CEO of Johnnic Communications now Avusa, before joining Telkom Media as Chairperson of its Board, said it was "with the deepest humility that I stand here in front of you and accept this award".

JMS alumnus, Tando Ntunja has been awarded a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship, which will allow her to read for her Master’s degree within the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University (NYU). Ntunja has registered for Jay Rosen's Studio 20 programme, which much like a lot of the other NYU offerings has a multi-media focus, the difference here being that it has a particular focus on innovation and adapting journalism for the web.

Everyone is HIV-positive until they are proven otherwise. Dr Sindi van Zyl, of the Anova Health Institute in Johannesburg, which specialises in HIV treatment and prevention, doesn't mince her words. Neither can South Africans, she says, 18% of whom (adults, that is) are HIV-positive. She was speaking at Rhodes University's School of Journalism and Media Studies at the invitation of the Discovery Centre for Health Journalism and the topic of her lecture was "HIV: Facts versus Fiction. Answers to HIV myths you have been wondering about". Van Zyl said her outlook was that everyone was HIV-positive until it was proved otherwise. The biggest obstacles to combating HIV/Aids, she said, were perceptions about whom the disease affected.

Rhodes University's Sol Plaatje Institute (SPI) for Media Leadership, the convener of the Africa Media Leadership Conference (AMLC) for the past nine years, has teamed up with the African Media Initiative (AMI) to strengthen their common goals of working to create sustainable, diverse and pluralistic African media. The two organisations also seek to provide a range of platforms and learning initiatives so that African media become "learning institutions which continuously seek to improve their performance to audiences and markets by providing high quality and ethical management and management systems and editorial and advertising content", AMI and the SPI announced today.

JMS alumnus, Khwezi Magwaza has been awarded a prestigious Ford Foundation Scholarship which will allow her to read for her Masters degree within the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. Until recently, Magwaza was the editor of seventeen magazine. Magwaza graduated with a BA (Journalism) in 2002. All the best Khwezi!

Highway Africa's, Future Journalists Programme (FJP) recently hosted the second event on its calendar, the Winter School: Experiential Learning at the National Arts Festival, from 30 June - 10 July 2011. 20 FJP students from different institutions around South Africa once again converged on Grahamstown for an interactive writing workshop. The aim of this workshop was to teach FJPs (as the students are known) the nuances of writing, whilst giving them the opportunity to practise their newly acquired skills. What better place and time to have done this than during the National Arts Festival?

Chris Giles, economics editor of the Financial Times (FT), poured cold water on the idea that South Africa belongs in the BRIC club made up of Brazil, Russia, India and China – despite having accepted the opportunity to join this loose grouping. He was speaking recently at a talk on the BRICS group, at The School of Journalism and Media Studies (JMS) as part of the Pearson sponsored Master Class for journalists.

by Thomas Maree Rhodes University's contribution to journalism in Africa took another step into the future on Friday as Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Dr Sizwe Mabizela officially opened the new Telkom/Highway Africa building. "We are honoured and privileged that Telkom is able to support us in the manner that they do," said Mabizela at the opening ceremony. This will be the 15th year that the Highway Africa conference has hosted Africa’s largest annual gathering of journalists, academics and media experts from all over the world.

The cinematic vision of a South African filmmaker (and JMS alumnus) helped a South Korean city scoop the hosting rights to the 2018 Winter Olympics. Caroline Rowland, a Welkom-born producer, made the documentary showcasing Pyeongchang that got it the nod ahead of Annecy in France and Munich in Germany. Rowland, 43, works out of the UK and was in Durban this week for the International Olympic Committee’s announcement. And it's not her first success on the big stage. Her productions have helped three other cities win hosting rights to major events.

For the third consecutive year, JMS alumni have emerged victorious in the student category at the Siemens Profile Awards, which rewards excellence in science and technology journalism in Africa. Alumni Nontobeko Sibisi and Kyla Herrmannsen won the category, for their documentary entitled 'The FIFA 2010 Stadium in PE - Who really wins?', which looked at stadia built for the FIFA 2010 Soccer World Cup an

JMS alumnus Lindile Mpanza was one of the winners at the CNN MultiChoice African Journalists Awards, held in Johannesburg recently. She won best television feature for her piece entitled, 'Silence of the Innocents' which tells the story of young girls who are abducted, raped and forced into marriage in the Lusikisiki area of the Eastern Cape of South Africa. "I'm very excited because it's a great achievement for me to have won such a prestigious award at the age of 25. I fee

Cue newspaper celebrates its 25th birthday in 2011. For 25 years, Cue has been giving you all the news, views and reviews needed to navigate your way around the National Arts Festival. Over the years, hundreds of JMS alumni have worked on this project. We recently asked them what 'Cue' memories they could share with us. This is what they said: "Trying to print proofs after Elan Lohmann sent a strip of cooking foil through the printer." (Derek Abdinor)

Gavin Stewart, founding editor of Cue, remembers its inception and looks at where the newspaper finds itself 25 years on. Not everyone loved Cue from the start or forever afterwards. But the Festival daily was fated to be a best seller from day two. We had to get only two things right: persuading the country's top reviewers (and editors) that Cue should print their reviews before their own newspapers, and producing a paper nine nights in a row in time for breakfast. Standard Bank had offered to sponsor a daily newspaper if Rhodes' Department of Journalism and Media Studies could produce it. Don Pinnock borrowed a Desk Top Publishing (DTP) system (then th

by Kerry Peter The Media and Citizenship: Between marginalisation and participation, one of four Mellon funded research and postgraduate education focus areas recently launched by the Faculty of Humanities at Rhodes University, will critically examine the ways in which the South African media realise their potential to contribute to the (re)construction and (re)negotiation of citizenship. The project seeks to establish to what extent media facilitate democratic participation, or may contribute to further marginalisation of citizens.