October is Africa Pride Month, a time to celebrate the progress that Queer communities have made within the continent, and a time to reflect and discuss how Queer stories are narrated in mainstream media.

As part of our Fav of the Week, fraycollege spoke to the Nigerian content creator about her videos, and becoming the West African winner of the 2022 Tik Tok Baraza Creator Competition.

What to study is a big decision, make sure you study the most up-to-date qualifications possible. The Quality Council of Trade and Occupations (QCTO) was created to oversee the quality of ALL occupational qualifications. It is now making its impact felt. If you are smart for 2023, get an occupational qualification. The Occupational Certificate: Journalist.

Fraycollege’s Introduction to Media Management eLearning Course welcomed over 180 women journalists from all over Africa.

To round up the academic year, our O.C Journalism students took a trip to one of South Africa’s biggest print news publications to see how a newsroom runs.

Every year on the 9th of August, South Africans celebrate and commemorate the women of 1956 who marched to the Union Building to protest the Urban Areas Act, which required black South Africans to carry an internal passport, which maintained segregation and control over South Africans.

In the spirit of Women’s Month, fraycollege hosted a #JournalismTalks Twitter space on August 11th called Reporting on Gender, which looked at reporting gender, with a specific focus on how women politicians are represented in the media, how gender is represented in the media, and how the media can improve its coverage when it comes to gender issues.

The Occupational Certificate (OC), accredited by the QCTO, allows graduates to be work-ready, both for big media concerns, small companies and in government, where the need to communicate timeously with citizens is crucial. Having worked to develop it with SANEF to produce and pilot the qualification, fraycollege is ready to equip the journalists of tomorrow.

The theme for Press Freedom Day this year was “Journalism under Digital Siege”. It looked at issues regarding media censorship and the harassment and violation of journalists’ rights. The fraycollege #JournalismTalks Twitter Space, hosted by Fray on May 5th, aimed to understand and touch on the transparency of digital platforms, empowering citizens with media and informed literacy and media viability.

In April this year, millions celebrated Passover and Easter, and are participating in Ramadan. Faith plays an integral part in the lives of many Africans, influencing their art, culture, and way of life. However, the practice of faith is largely absent in mainstream media, which has one asking the question: is religious coverage not really a story enough?

Trust is part and parcel of a healthy media ecosystem, said International Press Institute (IPI) chair Khadija Patel. Patel was speaking on a panel looking at trust and sustainability. The Twitter Space was hosted by fraycollege CEO Paula Fray who was joined by Professor and Director of the Centre for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cape Town, Herman Wasserman, News24 Assistant Breaking News Editor Sheldon Morias and Sonny Swe, founder and CEO of Frontier Myanmar.

Community plays a pivotal role in informing our communities. Journalists in this sector, and other sectors such as mainstream, have in the past two years played a masterful role to inform their audiences. This training will come in handy as we empower our journalists to be upskilled, as they report on this pandemic, and other challenges in the near future.