In late November, a general meeting of graduates of the Young Journalists’ School was held just outside St.Petersburg. To be honest, for me and my team it was a completely new experience and a new format. On this occasion, we wanted to organize something unusual for the kids, rather than just the usual workshops, master classes and meetings with experts. We wanted to come up with a project that could bring all the School’s graduates together. We spent a lot of time preparing for the forum, thoroughly planning the programme, thinking through the assignments and making the travel arrangements... Unfortunately, not everyone was able to come, for various reasons: some couldn’t get time off work, while others couldn’t make it for family reasons. So I was particularly pleased that the forum still managed to bring together most of our young journalists - over 200 in total! And I hope they all had an interesting and productive time.
The reason I was so keen to organize this forum was that the young journalists had written to say they were missing the School, the experts and their new colleagues and friends, and that they were really keen to see each other again. There are already 300 people in our alumni community and I wanted to introduce the graduates from different years to one other. But the main thing is that I really wanted to get all the YMJ graduates together to think about what we can do to preserve the spirit of our School, to work on a joint project that could help us keep in touch with one another and share our news, victories, achievements and thoughts about whatever is of concern to us all.
So then I had the idea of getting everyone together at a forum with the sole objective of working on a trial version of an online YJS newspaper. Our idea was that the kids would work on the digest in groups, like mini editorial offices: 10 groups in total, each with 20 members. But how do you get teams like that to work closely and cohesively? We decided to organize a sports game at the very start of the forum, dividing all the participants into teams (the same teams in which they would later work on the digest). The work of each of these improvised editorial teams was moderated by our esteemed experts - Irina Varlamova, Aleksey Abakumov, Natalya Ivanova, Daniil Dondurey and Darya Miloslavskaya. At this point I’d like to say a special thanks to them for helping to turn our ideas into reality.
Honestly speaking, I was a bit worried at first that the kids wouldn’t be able to find a common language, to allocate roles and tasks properly within the teams, or manage to put the newspaper together in time...there were lots of concerns. But to my indescribable joy, every single one of the teams succeeded! I just loved the presentations, the digests and the features they came up with. The Young Journalists’ School graduates demonstrated that they are true professionals. In the course of one and a half days they achieved the improbable: they set up editorial teams, allocated roles, wrote features, compiled issues of the paper and pulled together some wonderful presentations on each digest. And it was clear that each of the groups was working as a close-knit cohesive team of people committed to a single idea, working towards a common goal, focused on achieving a result and willing to sacrifice a lot in order to get there. Even the experts hadn’t expected that level of discipline and creativity from the kids. So in the end, all our fears were unfounded: the teams coped magnificently, and I’m really pleased with the work we did together.
I realize, of course, that during the forum everyone was energized and inspired by the new project and keen to get involved with the digest and help each other out. And I really hope that now they’re all back at home and focused on their own jobs they won’t lose their enthusiasm and commitment to producing the online YJS newspaper. The digest will be a monthly publication, with the editorial work rotating every month amongst the teams set up at the forum. News features can be sent in by any YJS graduate without exception. I believe the YJS digest will be a great success - an interesting publication with a loyal readership.
PS: As Chairman of the National Media Group’s public council I can report that the Group’s management are very interested in developing the YJS digest and are even willing to offer the possibility of re-printing the best features in the Group’s own media assets. I hope this will provide a strong incentive.
