RNTC’s trainers pool includes inspiring, seasoned international journalists with experience in many types of new media on different platforms. They have worked with renowned media organisations like the BBC, CBC, MTV, and RNW Media (formerly Radio Netherlands Worldwide).
Award-winning trainers
Brandon Oelofse
Brandon is currently Manager and Senior Trainer at RNTC and trains globally. He is an award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker and his work has been represented at numerous festivals, including Cannes and the Oscars. He has directed television series, commercials, short films, documentaries, new media content, stage plays, and is well known for his work as a music video and adverts director in South Africa.
He is a company director of Vuselela Media, a South African non-profit organisation that develops grassroots journalism in disadvantaged communities. The company produces a number of national television shows, using media for change. In 2014 he co-authored “Making the Media Work for You” – a guide for civil society organisations on how to access the media and use it for change.
In the last 5 years, Brandon has been working in media education for The South African School of Film and TV, organisations such as Free Press Unlimited and RNTC and universities in South Africa.
He has a BA Honours (Cum Laude), and a Masters of Fine Arts from The South African School of Film and Live Performance (AFDA), and has studied film in New York and at the University of Johannesburg.
Ginger da Silva
Ginger designs courses, gives workshops, conducts intakes, monitors progress, holds evaluation meetings, conducts daily editorials and weekly review sessions, and much more in RNTC. Ginger da Silva’s first career was in Canada as a radio journalist and producer for the CBC. She worked for 20 years as senior producer and 7 as adjunct head of the English language service of Radio Netherlands Worldwide (now RNW Media). Now she works freelance in a variety of capacities, principally as a course leader and trainer for RNTC.
Ginger likes to see journalists break out of the mould and try something new: "I love to see participants become more creative, combine media formats in new ways, and improve their storytelling skills."
Janet Anderson
Janet Anderson is an experienced RNTC trainer focusing on advocacy and communication. She uses her many years working for the BBC in Europe and Africa to enable journalists and NGO communication professionals to develop new skills in targeting audiences, crafting stories, and making the most of opportunities offered by new interconnected media landscapes.
Janet has also trained media professionals worldwide (on behalf of organisations such as Search for Common Ground, BBC Media Action, Hirondelle Foundation, IWPR) in covering justice, conflict, and peace processes. Based in The Hague, she blogs and tweets about transitional justice, including developments at the International Criminal Court, using her experience in Rwanda, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Bangladesh, Tanzania, Mali, Nigeria, and the former Yugoslavia. "I love the moment when a journalist acquires a new skill or idea and applies it, especially if she can measure its impact,” says Janet.
Jonathan Groubert
Jonathan Groubert teaches investigative journalism, storytelling, and multimedia broadcasting for RNTC. He’s an award-winning journalist and former host of the internationally lauded public radio show “The State We’re In,” first from Radio Netherlands and then as a podcast for WBEZ Chicago Public Media. His work has been broadcast by the BBC, NPR, the Australia Broadcasting Corporation, and Deutsche Welle as well as the podcasts Vox Tablet and Snap Judgment. An expert interviewer, Jonathan helped coin the term “talkumentary” in which interview and narrative journalism combine to tell truly powerful stories. This American Life host Ira Glass described Jonathan as “one of the best radio interviewers I have ever heard.”
Jacqueline Maris
Jacqueline Maris is a certified senior trainer who has worked for RNTC for more than 15 years. Between 1995 and 2014 Jacqueline Maris worked for the foreign desk of Dutch national public broadcaster VPRO as senior radio producer on foreign and current affairs, radio documentaries, radio drama, and oral history. Jacqueline ran her own own story programme on VPRO and regularly produced multimedia stories. Her work has been awarded a number of national and international prizes.
Besides working as a journalist for newspaper, radio, television, and online, she also provides training in the Netherlands and abroad, predominantly in African and Asian countries. Her expertise areas include radio skills, multimedia, participatory radio, storytelling, and persuasion.
Tag (Mary) McEntegart
Tag McEntegart has contributed to RNTC’s work as a freelance consultant since 2003. She is a powerful communications and development professional with 30 years worldwide leadership and management experience. She is a respected leader, facilitator, teacher/trainer, team-builder and manager, with wide and deep experience of strategic and policy planning and implementation in several development sectors, including media & communication, science, arts, and research.
She is especially valued for her fieldwork in culturally challenging and conflict-sensitive contexts, such as southern Somalia (Hargeisa), Ukraine, Turkey/Armenia/ Azerbaijan, and Bosnia & Herzegovina. She has four and a half years’ social reconstruction field experience of one of the most serious post-conflict contexts of recent times in the Balkans. Tag holds a BA Honours, MA, and PGCE from Oxford University, Leeds University, and the University of Central England (now Birmingham City University) respectively.
Shaun Matsheza
Shaun Matsheza is a communication specialist from Zimbabwe. He is a content strategist, editor, producer, and trainer at RNW Media and RNTC. Shaun is a political activist and former president of the University of Zimbabwe Students Executive Council. He is a cultural critic and his passion lies in the link between storytelling and people's perceived ability to effect change. He holds an MA degree (cum laude) in Media Culture from Maastricht University.
Peter Schrurs
Peter Schrurs is course coordinator of RNTC’s Broadcast Management courses. He is highly experienced in both managing and training in the media sector, having spent 11 years as managing director of the respected Dutch broadcaster VPRO.
Peter worked as a lecturer at the Academy for Education and Labour and Utrecht School of Journalism, which is the oldest educational institution for journalists in Europe. In 1990, he became director of the School of Journalism. Eight years later, he switched to Dutch broadcaster VPRO, where he worked until he was asked to join the team of trainers at the RNTC.
Peter is a member of the Board of Governors of RTV Utrecht, a Dutch regional public broadcaster. He is a strong advocate of the RNTC’s learning-by-doing method. He keeps course participants so focused on their assignments that they regularly ‘forget’ that they are learning. Asked what the biggest challenge in journalism management is, he points out that “Like all creative people, journalists are among the most difficult to manage.”