Prof Graeme Addison is the Director and lead facilitator for Editorial Assignments. He currently runs the Vaal Cybercentre at Parys, an hour south of Johannesburg, where there is a conference centre and accommodation for workshop participants.
Graeme works with fellow professionals in media and academia to offer communication training and advice to the industry. Since 1997 he has been a fulltime writer and roving teacher for university and NGO media classes. He is the author of 13 books ranging from popular science & technology to African business and religion, the world’s rivers, and nutrition&healthy living. He is a well known trainer of tour guides.
Graeme is a qualified Assessor and has served both the media education & training authority (MICT-Seta) and the tourism & hospitality authority (Cathsseta). He has been a facilitator for the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism (IAJ) since the mid 1990s and before that was the media trainer for the Wits University Centre for Continuing Education (CCE).
He was Professor of Communication at the University of the North West (1994-6); Head of the Department of Public Relations and Journalism at Technikon Natal (1993) and previously Senior Lecturer in Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University (1977-81). He was Senior Fellow and launched the Social Indicator at the University of Natal in 1983-4).
Born in Johannesburg and educated at Wits University (Economics and English), in the 1970s he started as a reporter on The Cape Times and then became a subeditor and senior reporter at the Rand Daily Mail and The Star. He was correspondent for the London Evening Standard during the Soweto Uprising of 1976-84.
During the past decade, Prof Addison conducted training on behalf of the Auditor General of South Africa, explaining to journalists countrywide how to understand and report on the annual audits of government departments (PFMA and MFMA). This brought about a marked improvement in coverage of financial accountability by the state.
Apart from media, Graeme is a National Tour Guide specialising in adventure and ecotourism. He is a specialist on the world’s largest meteorite impact site, the Vredefort Dome, and is the pioneer of whitewater rafting in South Africa. He is married to Karen and has four sons working in different parts of the world.
