Newspaper in 12 hours

In order to learn how to swim you have to actually start swimming. And what should you do in order to learn how to write articles? A group of young people from Kharkiv, not related through work in mass media, made a newspaper in order to learn how to make one. Young people spent 12 hours on preparing a rather big issue of urban newspaper for youth Trempel with original articles – and it is sure impressive.

NEW MEANING OF OLD WORDS

Apart from the high-speed creation process, the newspaper is distinguished for its serious approach to the selection of the topics it covers, which include the issues of human trafficking and violence in Ukraine, aspects of urban leisure, descriptions of romantic and mystical places in Kharkiv. It writes about how to make a quick buck in case of unexpected hardship, how to protect yourself from police brutality. The newspaper also provides advice on better places to study a foreign language and where to go to study abroad, how to start a family and have an interview with a potential employer. These issues are interesting not only for students, but also for older residents of Kharkiv. About a thousand people read the new materials published on social networks. Some people who commented on the publication could not believe that the articles were prepared independently in such a short time and accused the young journalists of copying the on-line resources. However, they did not provide any proof of plagiarism and thus, gave a compliment in a way for the novice in the journalism sphere.

“Gathering materials, doing interviews, generating ideas, making layout, editing – we did all of this on our own. We made a good team even though we all first met only on the project,” said 25-year-old Kateryna BOLDYREVA who performed the functions of the chief editor. The amateur journalists are especially proud of the name of the newspaper. “This is a word from the local Kharkiv vernacular with historical connotations. We had other ideas too, such as ‘Student Newspaper,’ but they were boring, thus, the name ‘Trempel’ won. In the newspaper we published a reference article about the origin of this word. It came from the last name of the local ingenious sewing master from the past century,” said 16-year-old Naia SMAHINA, the youngest participant of the project. She dreams of becoming a journalist and participation in the project was the first test of journalism skills for her. Smahina acted as a PR manager and promoted the newspaper in blogs and social networks. Besides, along with the team of 24 people she participated in the discussion of topics and conducted a photo shoot.

TO BE CONTINUED?

The newspaper, published in compliance with the canons and requirements of modern journalism, was the result of the work of the master class held by professional journalists from Kyiv which was a part of the activities organized by the International NGO “Interviews Network.” Another similar master class was held in Odesa. The idea of the high-speed newspaper project belongs to the employee of this organization, former resident of Kharkiv Yevhen DEMCHENKO. According to him, not only has the project shown that there are many active and talented young people in Kharkiv, but it has also given a chance to diversify the city’s media space, which in recent years has become more than depressing. “Making a newspaper on your own means to learn to gather and analyze information. The participants of the project now treat with more criticism the presentation of materials and mass media manipulations,” said Demchenko. He believes that this is the most important result of the project.

However, the desire of the amateur journalists from Kharkiv to continue publishing the newspaper became a pleasant surprise for the organizers. Young journalists have already requested to register the publication. “We are going to publish the second issue by the end of December,” promised Boldyreva. “We will try to find sponsors. We have an idea to make contact with the producers of clothes hangers (trempel in Ukrainian).” Young people, however, haven’t seriously considered the business aspect of journalism work.