Young Journalists’ School workshops have been held in Moscow under the patronage of Alina Kabaeva’s charity foundation. One hundred people from various regions of Russia, as well as Ukraine and Kazakhstan, came together to learn from leading experts in the fields of journalism, sociology and Russian philology.

The project’s initiator, Alina Kabaeva, jokes that this year the organizers and many of the School’s experts have reached the “third form”, as this is already the third Young Journalists’ School. It all began in Youth Year, in 2009, when Alina had the idea of organizing workshops on ethics and professional skills for young journalists from the regions, with invited experts of the very highest caliber. Kabaeva is a famous gymnast who is better known nowadays as a public figure. She is a deputy in the State Duma, head of her own charity and a TV journalist. So it was no mere coincidence that she hit upon the idea of an education and public information project for journalists.

Alina explains why she chose this subject as follows: “Journalism is an exceptionally important profession, because it’s the media that have an huge influence on our society. But at the same time, I’m actually doing what I personally find most interesting. And when I read the feedback we receive from our students I can see that it’s not just me who finds the project interesting.

Youth Year was over long ago, but the Young Journalists’ School lives on. It has successfully “passed” its second set of exams, and the third session is now in full swing. Year after year the YJS workshops are run in two parts for each group: Moscow in the spring and St.Petersburg in the autumn. And judging by the young students’ enthusiasm and attention levels during 10-12 hours of classes, it’s clear that this is an idea with a lot of potential.

“On the first day we never even managed to get out into the city, because every single minute was accounted for. But it was enormously valuable. The mood was very creative, with no time-wasting; we discussed vital professional principles and situations”, says Marina Kendyalova, a 24-year-old correspondent from the Saransk newspaper “Respublika Molodaya”. “They’re just unforgettable, these real meetings with people you respect, whose articles you read in the papers and on the internet, and who you watch on TV. One of my colleagues was on last year’s Young Journalists’ School and came home simply walking on air. I didn’t want to miss out on such a unique opportunity, of course, so she recommended me and I applied. I entered my pieces in the competition and was given a place on the workshop.

This practice of recommending colleagues was introduced by YJS last year: new students can be recommended by those who were fortunate enough to take part in the workshops the previous year. It’s seen a way of cultivating the idea of continuity within the project. Another good tradition we’ve developed is for the students to tell us which experts they would like as their mentors. The School already has a regular core of lecturers, and these really are outstanding experts in their professions. The session and workshops are run by true superstars and maestros: TV journalist Marianna Maximovskaya, editor-in-chief of “Ekho Moskvy” radio station Alexey Veneditkov, TV journalist Mikhail Osokin, editor-in-chief of REN TV Alexey Abakumov, editor-in-chief of the “Art of the Cinema” magazine, sociologist Daniil Dondurey, literary critic and deputy chief editor of the “Banner” magazine Natalya Ivanova, branch director at the International Centre for Not-For-Profit Law Darya Miloslavskaya and others. And the kids themselves, for example, added editor-in-chief of the business publication “RBC Daily” Petr Kiryan to the list of star teachers – which came as a big surprise to him, incidentally.

“I’m not a public figure at all, so it wasn’t expecting it”, acknowledged Petr.

But he was happy to accept the invitation and for two hours he held the audience in suspense (he was talking about how to get hold of information in the secrecy- and intrigue-ridden world of business and finance).

“Petr Kiryan spoke about purely practical things and told us everything about how the editorial office works”, explains Vsevolod Boyko, a 23-year-old journalist from Saratov. “This is a unique experience – you can’t read about these things anywhere. I actually read Kiryan’s newspaper every day, and now I’ve managed to speak to him personally and ask him questions. It’s an amazing opportunity.”

It’s very noticeable just how different the students’ reactions and the atmosphere in the School are from what you get at the usual “workshops” and “training courses” to which employers from the regions send their subordinates for the sake of image, while the students themselves mainly go along for a good time in Moscow. On this course there are no drooping eyelids: every presentation is followed by a hail of questions and the students can even interrupt the expert, start a dialogue or a debate with him or share their experiences…something that would be unthinkable anywhere else!

“I always try to give the kids a lively response, because each of them asks questions in their own way. And they’re often very interesting questions. How does the student contingent vary from year to year? Well, the contingent here is always a good one and a strong one”, reveals Daniil Dondurey. “You can see just how interested they are; they want to learn as much as possible. When you get feedback and there’s a kind of psychological wave coming from the audience, you yourself start to…think better. There are often difficult questions that are actually hard to answer. And these questions are sometimes more interesting that the ones you get from the bosses on auto-pilot who think in a more conventional and stereotyped way. Young people often want to turn things upside down. And you need to do this together with them, because it’s an enormous please for any author or lecturer.”

Daniil Dondurey’s speech, which amongst other things included some precise statistical data, seems to have made the biggest impression on the young journalists writing articles and filming reports on humanitarian issues.

“When I get home I’d like to have arrived at answers to certain questions about my work that have troubled me for a long time now”, admits Yulya Pustoplesova from Nizhnekamsk. “Today Daniil Borisovich spoke a lot about culture and journalistic ethics. But sometimes I don’t know what the right thing to do is: to show solidarity with the hero or with my editor? What to keep quiet about, what to say, and what to drop? I have to make these choices quite often.”

“What I really appreciate about this School is that the organizers have managed to bring together people who want to progress in their lives and professions”, is how Natalya Ivanova explains her attitude towards the audience. “Not in the sense that they want to make a career at any price, though I’ve no doubt that these kids definitely will make careers for themselves. No, they want to progress intellectually and spiritually. You can see it in their faces and in the questions they ask. These are people who already know a lot, who read a lot, and who have their own opinions and attitudes. This is really important, and it’s why I like them and the School in general so much. Their enthusiasm literally recharges our batteries too.

“After listening to Natalya Ivanova, I noted down a list of must-read fiction for a whole year ahead”, says Marina Kendyalova from Saransk.

But of course no modern journalist could get by without television. And the young journalists’ interest in TV is enormous, so that’s why they all went off to see REN TV. They were even allowed into the live studios, with lists of VIPs allowed access pinned to the doors. Each of the guests was given the opportunity to feel like a Maximovskaya or an Osokin.

Afterwards the station’s editor-in-chief Alexey Abakumov gave them not only a brilliant lecture, but some practical exercises as well.

Just before the end he made the following tantalizing proposal: “We’ve got twenty minutes left. You can either go off for lunch or else stay behind and I’ll reveal to you five ways of making any feature, any report or any article – anything at all, in fact – brilliant.”

“And you expect us to go off for lunch after an offer like that?” the audience replied.

The Young Journalists’ School is a double success. It’s not only the students who find it interesting: it generates no less interest and excitement amongst people who have already made it as top professionals in journalism…people who have been in the profession for many a year and whom you might be inclined to forgive any loss of enthusiasm or condescension towards the young people. But this project literally recharges their batteries with youthful energy and supplies them lots of vivid new ideas – after all, there’s simply no other event like it in the country. This is probably why the professionals are so generous in sharing their knowledge, abilities and outlook with the young people. And this is the true secret of the School’s success.