Betty Njeru, a sub-editor at the Standard Media Group, has been selected to attend the annual Sanlam Summer School for Financial Journalism in South Africa. The Summer School is a training programme for emerging journalists with three years or less work experience in reporting on business and finance.
This year’s training will run from 10th November to 16th November 2019 at Pecan Manor in Hartbeespoort, just outside Johannesburg. It is set to host 29 journalists from newsrooms across Africa.
In her role as a sub-editor, Betty’s responsibility is to write, edit, proofreads and monitor content on The Standard Digital Website. She is also responsible for publishing content and optimizing it for online consumption.
Sanlam Kenya Group CEO Dr. Patrick Tumbo said the training of financial journalists is aimed at increasing their capacity to report on corporate governance, a critical part of businesses across the world.
“The media is working in a space where digital has changed the business model significantly and journalists have to work faster, and deliver content for multiple platforms. There is need to explore how to meet this demand while delivering quality in-depth pieces particularly in financial reporting, where stories tend to be light in nature,” added Dr. Tumbo.
As a subsidiary of the Sanlam Group, Sanlam Kenya participates in this programme by extending invitations to suitable financial journalists from the country, in collaboration with the main office in South Africa.
Established in 2003, the programme has trained business journalists over the years and today has more than 490 successful journalists among its alumni. Sanlam has trained 3 journalists from Kenya since 2016, making Betty Njeru the fourth.
The annual Sanlam Summer School for Financial Journalists (Summer School) was established as Sanlam’s response to the King II Report on Corporate Governance in 2003. The Report called on the private sector to assist in the training of financial journalists to develop investigative journalism skills for the improvement of corporate governance in South Africa. Since 2013, Sanlam extended the invitation to journalists from other parts of Africa to attend the programme through a sponsorship from its business partners in the countries where Sanlam currently has a footprint. As a result, journalists from Botswana, Namibia, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Malawi, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Nigeria have attended.
The Summer School is one of the initiatives that Sanlam supports to contribute towards the development of journalism. These initiatives include:
- The annual Sanlam Awards for Excellence in Financial Journalism, which have also been opened to journalists in the rest of Africa since 2013;
- The sponsorship of the Nat Nakasa Awards for Media Integrity, an initiative of the South African National Editors’ Forum to recognise bravery and integrity in journalism; and
- The sponsorship of the Stellenbosch University Journalism School’s Business Journalism and Numerical Literacy module.