фото: Анна Стяжкина
Nico Drok is the president of the European Journalism Training Association (EJTA), which brings together 60 leading schools of journalism from 25 European countries. Last year, South Ural State University, alongside universities from Austria, Spain, Ireland, Germany, and different states, was unanimously accepted as a member institution of the EJTA. This was predicated by the active cooperation of the SUSU Faculty of Journalism with the European Journalism Training Association.
In 2014, staff of the SUSU faculty of journalism shared their experience with the innovative changes to the academic process in universal journalism at the World Journalism Education Council in Belgium. At this international forum of professors of journalism, which was held in Georgia in 2015, representatives of the SUSU faculty of journalism discussed the successful convergence of the university’s mass media and the application of modern approaches to training journalists. Last year at the scientific and practical conference in France, representatives preened the possibilities of multimedia integration of the SUSU-TV television and radio company, student radio, the Technopolis journal, and the youth internet portal Newsroom Digital using SUSU’s 360-degree multimedia newsroom.
All of these areas of work within the SUSU faculty of journalism are of great interest to the European Journalism Training Association, which is actively developing modern forms and methods of preparing media specialists.
At the 2nd International Forum, Communication Leader of the 21st Century, Nico Drok made a presentation on journalists’ new skills.
“Journalism is a calling. These days, everyone can post news online, but there is also ‘real journalism’ which must be learned. At my old university, researchers said, ‘Anyone can be a journalist.’ I do not agree with this. Anyone can tell a story, but presenting the news professionally, having examined it from all sides, is not something everyone is able to do,” says Nico Drok.
The EJTA president held a master class especially for beginning journalists, The Future of Journalism. At a meeting with teachers from the faculty of journalism, the president of the European association noted SUSU’s unique media production space and the high level of future journalist’ practical training. The head of the EJTA got acquainted with the university’s media outlets; in his excursion, he stressed that the university has a unique media space which enables work in conditions of convergence and receive valuable experience in universal journalism. Nico Drok concluded, that the university’s space allows for the formation of new journalism skills, and also that SUSU is ‘with the trends’ of modern media.
Nico Drok was awarded a diploma and sash designating him as an honorary professor of the SUSU faculty of journalism in a special ceremony.
Cooperation between EJTA and SUSU is a serious step towards the development of our university’s international ties with international partners and increasing SUSU’s competitiveness in the international educational space.