Wits Journalism offers two courses in financial journalism and FinWrite, a two-day workshop for working financial journalists.

The courses are:

Financial journalism

This is a one semester (13-week) course which covers the basics of financial journalism including reporting on monetary and fiscal policy, economics, markets, regulation, statistics and companies. Outside speakers are drawn from the National Treasury, Reserve Bank, JSE and Stats SA. The course aims to give students a working knowledge of economics and finance as well as building business writing skills.

The course is open to students who have completed a three-year degree with a 65% pass mark in the final year and have worked for three years. Students can also qualify in terms of Wits University’s RPL (Recognition of Prior Learning) programme.

Financial journalism can be done as a certificate or as part of Wits Journalism’s Honours or Masters programme.

Advanced financial journalism

This is also a 13-week, one semester course. It focuses on building specialised knowledge in both reporting and analysing economics and finance. Topics covered include regulation, resources, company law, company analysis, banking, environmental economics and trade. Speakers with expert knowledge in their fields are invited to give presentations.

Students are required to have completed the Financial Journalism course with a 65% pass mark as entry into Advanced Financial Journalism, but RPL also applies.