On 4 September 2006, the School of Advanced Journalism was opened in Chişinău. This project is initiated by the Independent Journalism Center and aims at supplementing the existing system of preparation of journalists in Moldova.
Situation in the field
The interest in training journalists is continuously growing in Moldova. Future media specialists are prepared at four higher education institutions in the country, which have specialized faculties or departments. These are the State University of Moldova, Free International University, European Studies University and Comrat State University. Nevertheless, a deficit of well-qualified journalists is felt on the Moldovan media market. Many periodical publications and radio and TV stations feel forced to hire people without the necessary background to whom, many times, they must teach the fundamentals of journalism, along with the recent graduates of specialized faculties.
The quality of education offered by the universities, which prepare journalists leaves much to be desired for various reasons. The small salaries and large amount of work are not attractive for the field specialists. Faculties are left today with old-time professors who do not know the new principles of activity of the media and offer to the students useless history lessons and old theory rather than current media operation principles. The young professors employed at the faculties do not have the necessary experience in mass media, and the examples they bring are many times learnt by heart from books, have not been tried out in our press and are not credible. If we should refer to the active journalists invited to deliver certain lectures within the specialized faculties, we notice in them a lack of subject teaching methodology and, sometimes, their classes turn into an “excursion” through the media.
Journalism is a very practical profession and in close connection with the development of the society. Any lagging behind produces big handicaps to those who practice it, and things are much more serious if we are dealing with beginners. Today, we are far from having the faculties endowed with the technical equipment used in editorial offices and possibilities of improvising the realities therefrom. Therefore, young journalists, upon graduation, must take everything from the beginning, this time independently and on their own account. I have met many graduates who could not get a job in the media nor accommodate to the editorial room realities because, according to them, the university taught them only theory, and not how to apply it in their daily activity after graduation.
An attempt to change things
Corina Cepoi, Director of the School of Advanced Journalism and project author, says that what media managers need is not the Ministry of Education’s stamp, but professionals (1). The School focuses on practical skills and has as its target group people with university degrees that work or would like to work in mass media. Corina Cepoi emphasizes that the project idea arose eight years ago, when media managers started to be confronted with a shortage of specialists “skilled at working in a media organization” (2).
The sporadic trainings for journalists and seminars for the development of the Moldovan press in the last ten years have not brought the expected results to the Moldovan media. The development of the media market in Moldova requires a sustained and long change. It is necessary that the press matures and the approached problems are better understood in order to be solved. Corina Cepoi said in an article published on the website of the International Journalists’ Network that a change into better of the Moldovan press can only take place if 20 well-trained journalists enter the field every year (3).
Specifics of advanced training
The standards of graduate journalism training have been applied and showed good results in Georgia (Caucasus School of Journalism and Media Management), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Media Plan Institute), Serbia (Novi Sad School of Journalism), Macedonia (Macedonian Institute for Media) and in other countries, where schools similar to the one inaugurated recently in Chişinău have been open for many years. The experience of these countries’ colleges as well as the studies pursued by the author of the Chişinău project, Corina Cepoi, at the University of Missouri in the United States of America, laid the foundation of the training process at the Chişinău School of Advanced Journalism.
The new institution was opened in partnership with the Missouri University School of Journalism and Paris Center for Professional Formation of Journalists. Alongside these main organizations, which will put their signatures on the graduation certificates issued by the School of Advanced Journalism, several Western media organizations contributed to the inauguration of Chişinău School, among which Press Now from the Netherlands, International Center for Journalists, Lille School of Journalism, Internews and Free Europe radio station.
The courses taught at the School are based on practical exercises. Each student will have the possibility to observe by himself/herself how mass media work, starting with the writing of simple news and up to the most modern types of press management. The School has a modern technical base, which is identical to the one existing in the newsrooms of Moldovan newspapers and radio and TV stations. At the same time, the students have the possibility to works with technical means that are not yet in the endowment of local journalists.
The curriculum includes several modules whose duration is dictated by the importance of one course or another for the exercise of the profession of journalist. The first month of studies was dedicated to News, as the genre that lies at the basis of mass media. Besides elementary concepts about this genre, the students had the possibility to learn how subjects of articles are chosen, the angle of approach, the work with sources, and the structure of press articles. Other two as important modules were Photojournalism and Media Law. The first one aimed at introducing the students to the specifics of press photography, and the second one – to the fundamentals of the legislation and good practice of the activity of mass media: access to information; freedom of expression; defamation; informational security of the society and of the individual; constitution, reorganization and liquidation of media companies etc. (4).
For the first semester, there are also planned courses on radio and television, opinion writing, community journalism and general concepts of media management. After the winter break, the students will have courses in online journalism, investigative journalism, writing features on business, culture, science etc. The studies at the Chişinău School of Advanced Journalism also include a four-week internship at a media institution within the country and writing a professional project, which will be the school graduation paper.
The model chosen by the Chişinău School of Advanced Journalism is one able to prepare universal journalists within 11 months, as long as the training program lasts. This model was selected as a result of many observations of the media phenomenon in Moldova, which proved that Moldovan journalists must meet many requirements and be able to work at several types of media, which is characteristic of transition societies.
Instructors
During the last three years, the Independent Journalism Center has organized many training courses for the professors from specialized faculties and for professional journalists, during which they learned modern subject teaching methods. About 20 Moldovan specialists have visited within this project the University of Missouri, which has one of the oldest journalism faculties in the United States of America. During those visits, the Moldovan professors and journalists attended various lectures and practical classes on the training of future journalists. They also made an exchange of teaching programs and methods.
During the past three years, many American journalism professors have come in working visits to Chişinău and organized seminars and round tables with the future instructors of the School of Advanced Journalism. Two American experts – one is editor at “New York Times”, the other one teaches at the New York University – are still providing assistance to the local professors with the organization and teaching of courses within the School. In the future, instructors from the Netherlands and France will be invited to teach.
Most of the local instructors who teach at the School of Advanced Journalism are experienced specialists whose names are known to all media consumers in Moldova. They are directors of periodical publications and radio stations, journalists at the mass media that have asserted themselves on the media market due to the correctness and professionalism in their activity. Among these, I would mention Vasile Botnaru from Free Europe radio station, Alina Radu from “Ziarul de Gardă”, Alexandru Canţâr from BBC radio station, Artur Gorghencea from Pro TV, and others.
First class
I want a fruitful career in journalism, said one of the 20 students who are part of the first class of the School of Advanced Journalism. This year, 52 individuals from various regions of Moldova, including Transnistria and TAU Gagauzia, showed interest in advanced journalism education. The Interim Director of the Independent Journalism Center, Corina Cepoi, says that the best students were selected on a contest basis. “We first evaluated the application forms and the candidates received marks on each component thereof; then they took a test, which included three exercises, whose results were evaluated by local and foreign experts”. (5)
Only six, out of the total number of students, had graduated from a journalism faculty, while the others are graduates of various faculties – from medicine to engineering. Nonetheless, most of them have experience with the media. Some of them worked or continue to work with various publications and radio and television stations.
When asked why they think advanced studies in journalism are necessary, the students said that they would like to understand better what they have got used to doing already intuitively, which would give them more security. Those with a journalistic background said that they want to learn more practical things, which had not been included in the university curricula. “Continuous training is necessary at the level of thinking, language, techniques of dissemination of information that is truly important to the public, content systematization techniques – to be able to render much information in a few words”, writes in her letter of motivation one of the current students at the School of Advanced Journalism.
Vitalie Dogaru,
Academic Coordinator,
School of Advanced Journalism
- Timpul, 27 September 2006, Interview “We will shortly change the quality of journalism in Moldova”
- idem
- http://ijnet.org/Director.aspx?P=DiscussionArticle&ID=305399&LID=1
- http://scoaladejurnalism.md/dreptul.php
- http://www.azi.md/news?ID=40805
Mass media in Moldova
(December, 2006)
