By providing a virtual meeting place and a way to share information and resources, journalism.co.za aims to improve communication between journalists across the region of Southern Africa.

When asked in an e-mail interview if he felt there were needs specific to Southern Africa’s journalists, site editor Franz Krüger noted that journalists in the region know far too little about each other. The site fosters association across national boundaries by discussing topics of common interest, as well as topics that might never be shared otherwise, he said.

“We would like journalists in this region to treat it as their home page,” wrote Krüger, “where they will find the information and contacts and debates that they need in their professional lives.”

He added that because South Africa is relatively new to democracy, and the process of democratization is happening in many African nations, the media are not strong enough to play their proper role.

“In our small way,” he wrote, “we hope to build better journalism and thereby support the democratic project.”

Journalism.co.za was started in 2003 by the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and is becoming a joint project between that program and the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism. Much of the material on the site is linked from other media sources, but Krüger wrote that he hopes to generate more original content. Journalism.co.za functions as a teaching tool for the Wits journalism program, and students contribute in various ways.

In addition to attempting to expand the site’s interactive components, a discussion has begun regarding e-learning options, according to Krüger.

One challenge is that people in Southern Africa have slow Internet connections, he wrote, so the site must be kept simple to ensure the downloads don’t take too long. Money is also an issue.

“We’re still dependent on kind funders,” wrote Krüger. “We would like to move to a new platform, we would like to commission more reporting — but all of these take money, which has been tight.”

Various features have been added along the way, including the Journ-AIDS and Journ-Ethics sections. The greatest change over the past two years, according to Krüger, is the concentration on news and almost daily updates.

“We have built a network of correspondents around the region which allows us to provide original coverage of news about journalism and media,” he wrote.

The Journ-Jobs section, which provides information on available positions in the media industry, is taking off slowly. Site organizers are looking at options to promote the section in the hopes of generating more income, according to Krüger.

Avid blogger Brendan Loy, a 2003 USC graduate who calls his website the The Irish Trojan’s blog, says that a passion for writing and a yearning for communication with a wide audience both fuel his healthy addiction to blogging.

Currently in his second year at Notre Dame Law School, hence the title “Irish Trojan,” Loy estimates that he spends up to six hours a day working on the blog he established while at USC. Although balancing blogging and school can be difficult at times, he says that the benefits of maintaining the blog far outweigh the burden.

“It’s worth the time spent because it provides an outlet, it allows me to think about things analytically and intelligently, and it allows me to create a community and keep people in touch with each other,” Loy said.

At USC, Loy studied print journalism and political science, while contributing to the Daily Trojan student newspaper. A self-taught blogger, he said his transition to a media form that can update and archive so rapidly was inevitable: “I’ve always had an undeniable urge to publish, even if that meant taping the latest news updates to my binder in middle-school.”

Though Loy’s blog reflects his many interests, including politics, media, sports and astronomy, his passion for meteorology recently brought him and his blog into the national spotlight. Loy’s non-stop blogging about the status of Hurricane Katrina and the dire consequences it could have for New Orleans rapidly gained attention online, and the Irish Trojan’s blog became the most visited blog source relating to Hurricane Katrina, according to Intelliseek’s Blog Pulse. Loy was featured on MSNBC and in the New York Times for his coverage.

The traffic on his blog has settled since Katrina, and Loy said he has tried to revert back to a more general purpose blog, though his site now has a larger weather-related audience than before the storm.

“Traffic is a fickle and addictive thing,” said Loy. While he admitted that catering to a certain segment of his blog audience to maintain high traffic is tempting, Loy asserted that his blog exists to reflect his interests and ideas.

“The essence of blogging is very pure and very democratic,” he said. “It doesn’t depend on someone or something endowing you with the power to publish. People think you are interesting and spread the word, and that is the appeal.”