The professionalism bug

The School of Journalistic Excellence, recently established by the Ukrainian Publishers Association of the Periodical Press (UAVPP) and the UMC mobile phone operator, is aimed at solving one of Ukraine’s most important tasks — forming a high-quality and professional press, the so-called “fourth estate.”

The school’s general course will consist of four modules. Eighty-four candidates from almost every region of Ukraine applied for the first one, and 25 were selected. These are young people who have already worked in the field of journalism and want to improve their writing skills.

“The program’s strategic mission is to lay the foundations for the steady improvement in the quality of Ukrainian journalism,” explains one of the school’s organizers and the general director of the UAVPP, Oleksii Pohorelov. “I am convinced that the people who are studying here now will become good editors and will pass their skills on and spread them to journalistic circles. This will be a kind of virus marketing.”

Part of the program offered to students involves meetings with experienced people working in the mass media — editors and publishers — who have many interesting things to share with the rising generation of journalists. A meeting with The Day’s editor in chief Larysa Ivshyna took place last week. During the discussion the students asked many questions focused on the professionalism of today’s Ukrainian press and the values it should cultivate.

In response to several questions about the right correlation between the journalist’s position as a citizen and objectivity, Ivshyna stressed: “We should start from historical coordinates. What can journalists who do not know their country’s history write? Such journalists are not able to make proper assessments. And we are talking about the high-quality press. We are not re-translators. We are not Dictaphone stands. We are thinking individuals, who should be forming Ukrainian values. Nobody will do that for us.”

COMMENTARIES

Nadia SHESTOPAL, Khmelnytsky, student at the School of Journalistic Excellence:

On the first day of the First Module I understood that there are no perks for a lazy journalist. That is why high-quality journalism in my understanding is above all work and exclusive information that should be conveyed to readers. There are such publications in Ukraine, for example, The Day. We can learn from this periodical.

Angelica BEKLARIAN, Kharkiv, student at the School of Journalistic Excellence:

First of all, a good journalist should write in an easy, accessible way and not load the text with unnecessary terms, complicated sentences, so that each reader can understand what the author wants to say. Journalists don’t have days off, they are constantly working. Wherever I am, I always try to pick up some interesting information. There are some excellent journalists, but many of them work for some party or businessman. There are few truly independent journalists in our country.