At SUSU, an Environmental School was held for students, where they talked about the National Project “Ecology as a Window of Opportunities for Beginning Journalists”. Its purpose is to create conditions for the practical training of journalists who will be able to professionally cover environmental problems and the right of citizens to a healthy environment in the media in the future. The project covers 5 large territories of the Chelyabinsk region, which have various environmental problems due to economic and natural reasons.
“Our aim is to ensure that journalists write high-quality elaborate texts with analytics, since very enthusiastic specialists who understand this topic speak at our seminars, appeal with numbers and names of programs, and then talk about it in an accessible, intelligible and interesting way,” says Svetlana Zaitseva, Chairman of the Union of Journalists of the Chelyabinsk Region.
At the master class, beginning journalists were able to improve their level of knowledge about ecology. The speakers have reminded the students that the state of the environment directly depends on each of us. And also the modern post-industrial society is experiencing an acute need for high-quality environmental information, for assistance in adapting to numerous environmental risks, for the possibility of participating in eco-political communication. The topics of a series of seminars on ecology were the following: “Air of a Big City”, in the mining zone – “Tourism Ecology”, in the south of the region – “Protect the Forest from Fires and Vandals”, in Karabash – “Life near the Factory”, in Miass – “What Lakes Cry About”.
“These meetings are very important for students, for student journalists, first of all, in order to understand how to write on very difficult environmental topics. One should write in such a way as not to traumatize or induce phobias on the population. And, most importantly, the environmental problems can get some kind of a solution,” says Olga Kharitonova, Associate Professor of the Department of Journalism, Advertising and Public Relations.
According to the organizers, such events are aimed at improving the professional skills of beginning journalists and broadening their horizons.
Marina Dymova, head of the environmental education department of the Ministry of Ecology of the Chelyabinsk region, outlines the motto of the meeting with Indian wisdom:
“Nature is not what we inherit from our ancestors, but what we borrow from our descendants.”