Grade 8 visits Mozambique's oldest running newspaper
On Monday, 17 February, 2020, 11 students from Grade 8 visited the oldest newspaper of the country — Noticias. Their Portuguese teacher, Adilia Cabral, planned the field trip to the offices of the daily as her students are currently learning how to write news pieces in their classes.
“The Academy curriculum emphasises global perspectives as well as local language and culture and I find that our visit to Noticias coincides with both those key tenets of our curriculum,” she shared.
On reaching the newspaper’s office in Maputo, the students met with journalist Francisco Manjate, who conducted the tour of the premises in Portuguese. After giving them a brief history of Noticias from when it started in 1926, he shared why it is a relevant newspaper even in the digital age.
The tour started outside the premises of the broadsheet and continued up into the offices where Francisco explained to the students the different responsibilities of each department. After the tour, students raised questions about newsgathering, fake news, fact checking and breaking news.
Reflecting on the field trip Adriana da Costa explained, “It was important to understand how hard people have to work to put together a newspaper everyday. We should appreciate the people who stay up late so that we can have the latest news in the morning. If it wasn’t for them we would have to rely on rumours and the internet which are not always very reliable.”
One student shared that this trip would help him with the end of term project. “It was interesting to understand what makes a news story. Since we have to put together a Portuguese newspaper as part of our assessment, it will be good to focus on how different departments come together to put out a newspaper,” explained Areesh Rehmani.
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