Seminar “Project Work as an Additional Resource of the Periodical Development and Realization of the Journalist’s Abilities” (2007)
The target audience of the Seminar are editors in chief, deputy editors, promising journalists of both print and electronic media, students majoring in journalism.
The objective of the Seminar is to systematize the knowledge referring to the field of the project activity and enhancing the development of the periodical and the journalist’s professional growth.
In January-June 2007, three seminars were held, with more than 60 representatives of different Mass Media taking part in them.
The participants were getting acquainted with the project technologies, discussing possible variants of projects for their periodicals, examining the resources required for them, mastering the skills of project group managing, building relations - they were discussing the whole range of questions which project work contains.
Study visit to Finland (2007)
14 journalists-agrarians took part in the Seminar “Modern Agrarian Technologies and Their Coverage in the Mass Media” which was organized for them in Finland by the Center of Journalism Technologies.
In the course of the seminar, the journalists visited the Union of Finnish Agricultural Producers, met with the administration of the Finnish agrarian newspaper “Maaseudun Tulevaisuus”, got acquainted with new technologies in the field of livestock fattening on one of the Finnish farms.
The participants of the seminar were also received in the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Finland.
The trip was realized under the auspices of the Interregional and International Committee of Nizhny Novgorod Region Administration, Russian Embassy in Finland and Finish Embassy in Russia.
Seminar “What and How a Publicity Agent Should Be Taught” (2007)
The Seminar was a part of the Project “Advertising in the Modern Mass Media” which, in its turn, was started by the Seminar “New Opportunities of Client Attraction through Advertising in Classified” organized by the Centre of Journalism Technologies in 2006.
Elena Terekhova, Chief of the Commercial Department of the Newspaper “Zemlya Nizhegorodskaya” (Nizhny Novgorod Land), was the expert of the Seminar.
The target audience were the directors of advertising agencies and the personnel of advertising departments of district and city periodicals.
In the context of the Seminar, the advertising agent’s technologies were examined in detail, the scenarios of selling advertisements to the newspaper and the system of cooperation between advertising agents and other employees of the periodical and participants of the market were discussed, the advertising agent’s package of documents was offered and the questions of the system of labour compensation and other motivation variants were considered.
Seminar “Newspaper Design: Modern Trends” (2007)
The Seminar was the first in the range of the planned meetings with the specialists of local media who are engaged in the design of periodicals. The content and design mutual influence, the issues of team work at the material, the place of infographics on the pages of a modern publication and some other things were among the most important and interesting tendencies discussed at the Seminar. The experts introduced topical tendencies in a newspaper design to the participants of the Seminar by the example of the International Conference “Newspaper Design” held in Moscow in December 2006.
The target audience were newspaper editors in chief, their deputies, executive editors and designers.
Alexander Zvezdin, a designer, and Larisa Zhivotovskaya, Deputy Editor of the weekly “Birzha Plus Kariera”, were the experts of the seminar.
Project “The Newspaper as a Creative Laboratory” (2006)
The Project is planned for several years and includes a series of interactive meetings of the students of the Faculty of Journalism with the employees of district, city and regional periodicals.
Under the support of the Center of Journalism Technologies, the students studying at the Faculty of Journalism of the University of the Russian Education Academy conducted a practical meeting in the newspaper “Gorodetsky Vestnik” (“Gorodets Herald”).
This periodical is, by right, considered to be one of the most successful ones in the region: its staff becomes prize-winners of journalist awards and its chiefs successfully solve media-business problems.
The future journalists met with the Editor in chief of the newspaper, Mr. V.A. Rodin, got acquainted with the work of the departments, visited the printing-house, examined the exposition in the museum and even tasted famous Gorodets spice-cakes.
They were also pleasantly surprised at the fact that several employees of the editorial office turned out to be students and graduates of the University of the Russian Academy. Among them, there is Igor Morozov, Deputy Chief of the newspaper, a prize-winner of several journalistic competitions.
An obligatory element of the project was the preparation and publishing of a special issue of students’ newspapers subsequent to the results of the trips.
Contest of Youth Journalism “Social Media-Challenge: XXI Century” (2006)
The Center of Journalism Technologies became a regional partner of the Russian Contest of Youth Journalism “Social Media-Challenge: XXI Century” for the second time. This contest was announced by the International Press-Club and the Russian Journalists’ Union under the auspices of the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Media. 221 works of young journalists of up to 25 years of age were introduced for participation in the Regional Tour of the Contest in the Volga Federal District. Five categories of the contest is a good opportunity for young authors to announce about themselves.
On December 14, 2006, the names of the prize winners were announced in the wooden inn of Nizhny Novgorod House of Actor which are the following: Nataliya Titova (a correspondent of the newspaper “Soviet Chuvashia”), Vadim Shurenkov (a reporter of the newspaper “Reporter and Time”, the City of Dzerzhinsk), Elena Ryabova (a correspondent of the newspaper “Sarov”, Nizhny Novgorod Region), Valeriya Yakovleva and Alexander Panchenko (correspondents of the newspaper “Birzha Plus Kariera”, Nizhny Novgorod).
Special prizes for the winners were instituted by the regional department of the Party “Unified Russia” and British Council in Nizhny Novgorod.
Contest “For the Exemplary Mastery of the Russian Language in Professional Activity” (2006)
The Center of Journalism Technologies has been a regional partner of the International Press-Club in the field of the organization and conducting of the regional tour of the electronic media journalists’ contest three years in a row already. The constitutor of the contest is the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Media.
The task of the Contest is to stimulate Russian journalists to use the language correctly when being engage in professional activity, to increase the number of materials which correspond to the up-to-date standards of Russian and use the whole richness of Russian speech in electronic media.
The State Institute of the Russian Language named after A.S. Pushkin, the Institute of the Russian Language named after V.V. Vinogradov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow State University named after Lomonosov, the International Press-Club, Information Portal www.gramota.ru are the partners and co-constitutors of the Contest on the federal level.
280 works from 32 Russian cities were introduced for the Contest in 2006.
Among the winners, there were journalists of the Volga Federal Region: the jury appreciated the television program “Markizha” (Marchioness), the City of Saratov, and a series of programs by Yury Khramov (“Semenov radio”, Nizhny Novgorod Region) got an award of the Contest in the category “Homeland Notes”.
Project “It Is Working!..” (2006)
The task of the Internet-project “It Is Working!..” is to promote successful experience gained by the district and city press in managing the editorial team, working at the improvement of the content and cooperating with the audience and advertisers. The Center of Journalism Technologies hopes that the experience of the colleagues confidently working in modern conditions will help somebody avoid possible mistakes and will shorten the way from the idea to the result. The Project is open for the participation of all those who are ready to share their success stories. And let the thought that the size of what has been reached is not large never stop you: multiplied by the energy of those who work in the editorial office and like your newspaper they will become the pledge of new achievements.
http://www.cjt.nnov.ru/rabotaet
Seminar “Extension of the Readership” (2006)
The target audience of the Seminar are employees of district and city newspapers who are engaged in the process of subscription, chiefs of district and city newspapers.
30 participants of the seminar together with experts-specialists were working out technologies of working with the audience and estimating the reserves of the readership and the ways of its stirring up. The representatives of the editorial offices from Arzamas and Pavlovo, Semenovo, Dalnee Konstantinovo, Bogorodsk, Vacha, Gorodets, Kulebaky, Shakhuniya and other districts of the region told the participants about their experience of the ways how to save and extend the readership of their newspapers.
In the course of sharing experience, an idea was expressed about the creation of a “bank of ideas”, which could collect the experience of regional periodicals in the field of working with the audience, newspaper promotion and selling - everything that allow you working for the long-term outlook – in such a way the idea of the project “It Is Working!..” has appeared.
Seminar “New Opportunities of Client Attraction through Advertising in Classified” (2006)
This Seminar was a part of the Project “Advertising in the Modern Mass Media”, the target audience of which were chiefs of advertising departments, specialists in advertising of print media, and advertising agents.
The task of this seminar was to form a new view at this kind of advertisement and consider the possibilities hidden in it. 25 employees of the regional press took part in the Seminar.
The expert of the Seminar was Elena Terekhova, Chief of the Commercial Department of the Newspaper “Zemlya Nizhegorodskaya” (Nizhny Novgorod Land).
Project “A New Journalist in the Editorial Office: Mastering Professional Standards” (2006)
Nizhny Novgorod and Orenburg were the two geographical areas of the Seminar.
The Center of Journalism Technologies conducted a two-day Seminar with such a title under the auspices of the Governor’s Press Service and the Government of Nizhny Novgorod Region.
More than 40 young journalists working in print and electronic press and information agencies became its participants. In the program of the Seminar which was worked out by the Center of Journalism Technologies, there were meetings with scientists and master-classes led by journalists-experts whose experience could be useful for young journalists.
Irina Panchenko, Editor in Chief of the newspaper “Birzha Plus Kariera”, Elena Kuznetsova, Candidate of Political Science, Lyudmila Makarova, Candidate of Philosophic Science, Galina Avdeeva, Chairman of Nizhny Novgorod Journalists’ Union, Natalya Skvortsova, Vladimir Aleekseev, Vasily Podkovyirin, Irina Manerova were in the expert group.
At the end of the seminar, a blitz-contest of the publications on social issues which were presented by the participants of the meeting was conducted and the authors of the best works got unique books of reference as presents.
Natalya Skvortsova, Director of the Center of Journalism Technologies, conducted the second seminar of this cycle in Orenburg for the students of the Faculty of Journalism. More than 30 future journalists took part in the seminar.
Study visit to Poland (2006)
The Program was organized according to the demands of the Publishing House “Gazetny mir” (Nizhny Novgorod, Director-general – Grigory Gundarin).
The organization of the Program was carried out in the partnership between two companies – the Center of Journalism Technologies (Nizhny Novgorod, Russia) and the Group BOSS (Warsaw, Poland).
The program of the training visit included several meetings in the editorial offices of Polish newspapers, the daily Dziennik Polski, the magazines Komandos and Bryd published by the Jagiellonia Publishing House being among them, a visit to the office of the daily Gazeta Krakowska which forms a part of the Polskapresse Publishing House, a meeting with the staff of RAM Publishing House and a visit to the largest agency engaged in the retail of printed press.
The participants of the training seminar could meet and discuss modern means of printed press promotion with their Polish colleagues who work in the field of marketing, promotion, subscription and distribution of printed periodicals.
The participants were received in Krakow City Hall where they took part in the multi-media presentation which introduced the city.
First Russian Information Forum “Civil Appeal” (2006)
The Center of Journalism Technologies became a regional partner of the International Press-Club and the Administration of the Federal State Employment Service in Nizhny Novgorod Region in the organization and realization of the first Russian Information Forum “Civil Appeal”.
45 people representing government and non-government organizations and movements took part in the press-conference with the participation of the regional Mass Media and also had an opportunity to express their attitude to the organization of the alternative military service on a Free discussion floor.
Nizhny Novgorod was the first city the Mayor of which had expressed his opinion for the organization of the alterative service even before the state law was passed. Besides, young people from Germany had been doing alternative service in Nizhny Novgorod Region for more than five years. Journalists and representatives of non-profit organizations heard a detailed story from Mr. Gennady Butakov who was doing alternative service in Gorodets Psychoneurological Boarding School, the opinion about the alternative service of German young men Simon Shule, Armin Khak and David Fink who were doing the service in Nizhny Novgorod social organizations, got an opportunity to express their own opinion concerning the alternative service on the Free discussion floor.
The event attracted much public interest; the discussion of the topic was continued in Nizhny Novgorod Mass Media.
“How to Improve the Coverage of Economic Issues on the Local Press Pages” (2005)
The Seminar on this topic was organized at the instance of Mordovia Journalists’ Union for journalists working in the departments of economics in district and city newspapers.
The objective of the seminar was to concentrate the participants’ attention on difficult economic processes taking place in the region, to motivate them for competent covering of these processes and explaining them to the readers.
Together with the experts (Irina Panchenko and Natalya Skvortsova) 40 participants of the seminar were looking for the answers to difficult questions which were placed before them by time: how to cover news and opinions on the pages of local newspapers, what social optimism means and where one can find it, how journalists understand their responsibility before the reader when working with various sources of information, how one works with statistics, etc.
The questions concerned with the participation of newspapers in the process of solving economic problems of the region caused an interesting discussion: such issues as qualified personnel, motivation of young specialists staying to work in towns and villages, new view on migrants as a source of labour force were discussed.
The seminar was highly appreciated by the participants, the Minister of Press of the Republic and the administration of the Journalists’ Union of the Republic of Mordovia.
Press-Tour of Journalists Writing on Economic Issues (2005)
The journalists of federal and regional media became the participants of the event organized by the PR Department “Volgatransgas” (limited liability company), Russian Journalists’ Union and the Center of Journalism Technologies.
The route of the tour went along Nizhny Novgorod Region, the Republic of Mordovia and Penza Region.
The objective of the event was to examine economic changes taking place on the territories where the subdivisions of “Volgatransgas” operate.
In the context of the press-tour, press-conferences, briefings with the representatives of the executive power of the republics and regions, the administration of “Volgatransgas” subdivisions were held. During the trip the journalists could make sure that “Volgatransgas” subdivisions make a valuable input into the further development of gasification of the regions and republics which form a part of the Volga Federal District, got acquainted with the processes of technical reequipment of gastransmission equipment and of the introduction of new modern technologies at the units of “Volgatransgas”, took part in the charitable act of transferring the means for the publication of the complete set of works by M. Lermontov which was organized in Penza reserve museum “Tarkhani”.
Study visit to Finland (2005)
14 employees of Nizhny Novgorod Editorial Centre “Gazetny mir” (Director-general – Mr. Grigory Gundarin) visited the largest publishing houses of Finland to get acquainted with new technologies of working with the content, modern methods of dealing with advertisers and improving the distribution system of periodicals.
The program of the training seminar was prepared by the Centre of Journalism Technologies on the part of Russia and Elvinat T:mi organization on the part of Finland.
The participants of the trip visited the largest publishing houses of the country: SanomaMagazines (46 own magazines, annual turnover – 174,8 million Euro) and Yhtyneet Kuvalehdet (38 own magazines, annual turnover – 144,8 million Euro), visited the Finnish Journalists’ Union, got acquainted with the history and traditions of our northern neighbours. Among those who the employees of the editorial centre “Gazetny mir” could meet and discuss professional problems with were Maria Palmunen, Secretary for Logistical Matters in the Finnish JU, Youni Tervo, Head of the International department of the organization, Veyo Kyayuhtyu, Editor-in-chief of the Association “Specialized magazines Sanomat” (Sanoma magazines Finland erikoislehdet), and Harry Saukkomaa, Deputy Director of the publishing house “Yhtyneet kuvalehdet”.
The experience which has been accumulated by the Finnish colleagues, undoubtedly, will contribute to the development of Nizhny Novgorod Press and the extension of the geography of its distribution: already today the periodicals of the Editorial Centre “Newspaper World” are distributed not only in Russian regions but also in Belarus.
Legal Awareness is a Key to Civil Society (2004-2005)
The task of the project is to develop an efficient pattern of interacting of Mass-Media, lawyers, human rights experts to promote the human rights ideas. The participants of the project are young specialists and the students majoring in relevant fields.
The Project includes 4 seminars, conferences on the youth participation in civil society development and summer school for the participants.
The themes of the seminars:
Mass-Media freedom and journalists rights protection
Youth and social partnership: challenges and perspectives
Human rights education
Youth and Rule of Law: understanding of the problem
A brochure containing most valuable recommendations offered at the seminar is to be published.
The project is to be realized under the support of the Commission for Democracy at US Embassy in Russian Federation.
Mass-media and civil rights culture in modern political and economic situation (2004)
The Press and the TV audience survey shows that the legal issues are of the first and foremost priority Russia. This interest may be explained by a swiftly changing political and economic situation, continuous law amendments and the feeling of being unprotected.
However, nowadays there is no systematic work with materials on legal issues in Mass-Media. Regional Mass- Media have few journalists ready to help their readers to concentrate on their problems.
The Seminar holders' objectives are as follows:
to summarize best experience,
to organize young journalist groups interested in the above problems and to motivate them to develop new professional spheres.
The project partners are:
"Open Region", Nizhny Novgorod Regional Foundation and the Center of Journalism Technologies.
The project involves four regions: Ulyanovsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Mary-El and Chuvashia Republics.
Seminar experts: Gennady Gorshenkov - Professor of law;
Vladimir Alekseev - "Internet-Lotsman" magazine, Editor-in-Chief;
Local specialists.
Seminar participants discuss the ways how the professional standards in the sphere of juridical journalism are being developed. Representatives of juridical and other structures interested in law knowledge improvement and dissemination of the appropriate information are attracted.
In September-December, 2004 seminars took place in Ulianovsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Ioshkar-Ola (Mary-El Republic) and Cheboksary (Chuvashia Republic).
Articles on problems discussed at the seminars are to be found in the leading regional newspapers and at the Internet-site, the e-mail address: www.osi.nnov.ru.
The Russian version of Prof. Gorshenkov's (the seminar expert) chapter from the book on Mass-Media Criminology you may find in the LIBRARY at our web-site.
Within the framework of the joint project the Center of Journalism Technologies and Nizhny Novgorod Region Publishing Committee held a series of consulting seminars on Modern Trends of the Press for the heads of the City and District Newspapers, Chief Secretaries, Managers and the Leading journalists.
The main task of the project is to inform the participants of the opportunities open to Mass Media as one of the business sectors. That is to teach them take their own Newspaper as a consumer oriented product, to make them evaluate positioning opportunities and to concentrate on the latest approaches and trends which will surely help to make their Newspaper a success.
The seminar program involves:
Issues of actual content;
methods of readers preference evaluation;
motivation of personnel,
methods of effective promotion and
cooperation with the advertisers.
Particular attention is paid to ethical aspects of cooperation technique.
One of the questions discussed at the Seminar is the issues of fund raising and grant support for new projects. The seminar participants are handed out recommendations on project development and sources of grant support.
All the hand-out materials, including the recommendations of the Regional Mass Media professionals, individual consultations held during the seminar, which help the participants to improve their own approaches and to organize their professional activity with a clear understanding of their own competitive advantages.
The Russian text at the web-site which contains the participants stories about the changes they made in their newspaper after the seminar.
Experts as well as the participants believe that the seminar helped to form an interesting program which may be very attractive for the potential audience.
Applications for the seminar have been received from Saratov, Saransk and other cities of the Volga Region.
In February, 2004 we organized one more seminar in which more than 50 editors-in-chief from 10 Russian cities discussed current media problems as well as economic and political life.
This seminar which was based on the best journalistic practices promoted methods of work expected to make the teaching process more flexible and mobile. Experts:
Boris Kirshin, Editor-in-chief of "Chelyabinskiy Rabochiy" newspaper;
Aleksey Pankin, Editor-in-chief of "SREDA" magazine;
Kristina Turilova, Expert of TACIS programs.
The seminar participants agreed with the need to review the existing approaches to the process of journalists' re-training so as to integrate the focus on contents and desire to meet the readers' interests to the maximum possible degree with the journalists' awareness of the need to expand their legal knowledge and improve their command of modern management technology.
Competition for Young Journalists: regional level ( 2003)
The Center of Journalism Technologies was a regional partner of this event which was organized by the Russian Ministry of Media and International Press Club
Applicants from 11 Russian cities sent 214 articles to the jury and after a series of discussions the prizes were given to Inna Solovieva ("Sovetskaya Chuvashia" newspaper), Natalya Khabibulina ("Kalina Krasnaya" newspaper, Udmurtya), Alexander Balakhnin ("Birzha plus Finansy" newspaper, Nizhny Novgorod), Nikolay Shiyanov ("Nedelia oblasty" newspaper, Saratov), Olga Katina ("Birzha plus Kariera" newspaper, Nizhny Novgorod)
Seminar "Legal and economic aspects of media reformation in modern Russia" (2002)
This project co-sponsored by "Internews" and the Glasnost Defense Foundation was implemented in June 2002. By the example of the regional daily Chelyabinskiy Rabochiy (represented by its editor-in-chief) media managers got some tips about how a newspaper can be successfully reformed despite the legal and economic difficulties Russia's media face today. Another goal was to identify the development TRENDS and give the seminar participants a set of INSTRUMENTS to help them put their own projects into practice. The seminars were attended by heads of publishing houses, editors-in-chief, advertising division managers and regional media lawyers. Organized in the cities of Vyatka, Nizhny Novgorod and Cheboksary, they stirred considerable interest on the part of the trainees.
Multi-Level Re-training Program for Regional Journalists (2001)
The Center began its activities with organizing the project offering training courses for journalists working for district and municipal newspapers. Special seminars and creative workshops in several districts of N.Novgorod region were attended by editors, executive secretaries, and heads of advertising divisions from nearby municipal media. Each on-the-spot seminar was crowned with a "round-table" conference to formulate a set of requirements for a general concept underlying a quality up-to-date newspaper. The participants proceeded with follow-up discussions with colleagues in their editorial offices to adapt the concept to their newspapers' specific needs on the basis of modern professional standards. Besides N.Novgorod regional journalists the seminars attracted their counterparts from the republics of Chuvashia and Mordovia and the regions of Vladimir and Ivanovo. Every seminar involved 12 to 15 representatives of regional media with regional newspapers' delegations consisting of at least 3 persons each. All in all the re-training courses were offered to representatives of 72 regional media. That systemic approach made the training seminar model applicable to virtually any region. Worthy of mentioning is the fact that the seminar's team of experts consisted of Nizhny Novgorod specialists with very high professional qualifications and in-depth knowledge of the capabilities of local newspapers and specifics of the economic and political situation in the regions. Their efforts were highly evaluated by most seminar participants who have ever since continued to receive their free expert advice.
The seminar's experience made the organizers believe that there is a need for a complex approach to the re-training of journalists. Such training offers journalists the opportunity to learn a few things that are either not taught at all or taught insufficiently well at colleges and universities (ethics, psychology, sociolinguistics, journalistic investigation, the basics of law, economics, innovative technology, business management, etc.)
About centre