The Head of the SUSU Department of Journalism, Advertising and Public Relations, Deputy Director of SUSU-TV Television and Radio Company, Doctor of Sciences (Philology), Professor, Honoured Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation Liudmila Shesterkina talks about how the idea of student television and radio broadcasting was born, about the people who brought it to life, about plans and prospects.
– How did the idea of creating a university television and radio company come about?
– The idea came when Sergey Gordienko and I were invited to SUSU to create a department of television and radio journalism. At that time, many TV channels and radio stations began to emerge, and the demand for good television and radio journalists increased sharply. And universities were mainly training personnel for print media. We, professionals with a quarter-century of experience in television, understood that it was impossible to train good specialists for our field without the appropriate equipment and machinery. At one time, we worked in the regional correspondent office of Russian television and radio and imagined what level of training graduates needed: they should be ready to get involved in the work process immediately after receiving their diploma, and have practical skills in creating television and radio materials.
We discussed the concept of the SUSU-TV Television and Radio Company with the university management – German Vyatkin was the rector at the time. People and money were needed to implement the idea. German Vyatkin said that if there is a good idea and a team of professionals capable of implementing it, the money will be found. The university accepted the idea of creating SUSU-TV, allocated funds, and allowed us to create the Television and Radio Company. We decided to immediately have the technical equipment of a high level, we purchased the equipment directly from Japan, not analogues, but digital ones, which our graduates were to work on.
German Vyatkin's successor, Aleksandr Shestakov, now the President of our university, supported the development of the Television and Radio Company in every possible way, and this course is continued by the current Rector of SUSU, Alexander Wagner. I would like to express my special gratitude to the university management for this care.
– How was the SUSU-TV team gathered?
– The main thing when selecting staff we considered was professionalism and common ideas. First, we created a Department of Television and Radio Journalism, where real masters of their craft, our friends at work, comrades, and like-minded people came. Now, looking back, I understand how lucky I was with my colleagues.
– How is editorial policy formed?
– We have a concept for the TV channel, which states that our work should contribute to the development of the smart, the kind, the eternal. We focus on programs with a positive attitude. We try to cultivate students' taste, instil culture in them, instil moral principles, an understanding of the special mission of a journalist: to help people live, especially in difficult times. Of course, all materials are reviewed by editors before broadcast, as expected. During training sessions, we analyse what we do well and what needs to be improved.
− What do you think is special about SUSU-TV?
− I believe that the main feature of our Television and Radio Company is that we, first and foremost, are educational television, designed to train specialists in the media sphere, no matter how important the tasks of promoting the university and creating our professional media products are. Previously, there were four specializations: we trained personnel for television, radio broadcasting, online media and print media. Then these specializations merged into one program, called Multi-purpose Journalism. Then, when they began to train Master’s degree students, Transmedia Journalism appeared – an even broader specialty, where a graduate can work in all areas at once. At SUSU-TV, we train specialists who can find a place for themselves in the global media space. I think this is very cool.
Our educational television has organically entered both the production schedule and the educational process. Such disciplines as “Release of an Educational Show”, “Fundamentals of Journalism”, “Creative Workshop” imply mandatory practice at SUSU-TV. Our practical classes, seminars, and sometimes theoretical lectures are associated with production work: both the educational process is ongoing, and content is created. Students from the first year begin to work in real television: they learn to work in front of the camera, write television texts, master very serious modern editing programs, neural network technologies, artificial intelligence, because this is widely used in television. It turns out that our Television and Radio Company has become a centre for training ultra-modern specialists. And this is great!
− Does the Television and Radio Company participate in scientific activities?
− Of course! For example, my doctoral dissertation on the formation of an innovative model for training journalists in the context of convergence was based on empirical material collected during the research that we had conducted with students at SUSU-TV. Several candidate dissertations have been defended, since our television and radio company exists as an object, as a subject that can be discussed in a scientific sense and studied. And, of course, my creative diploma projects are especially noteworthy – of which there are many. For example, Yana Zaripova’s brilliant diploma project – the Beyond the Exceptional documentary film. The film was nominated for the All-Russian Youth Journalism Prize “Shum” (“Noise”), and Yana was recognized as the best among ten thousand applicants in the “Breakthrough of the Year” category. This is a huge achievement, and it was made possible thanks to the Student Television and Radio Company. And now Yana is the director of the program “Avenue of the Young”, but she is also a cameraperson and a sound engineer, she can shoot, edit, and assemble, a versatile media specialist, full of creative ideas. One more example is Valeria Bondar's diploma, the Manu Armata documentary film, for the preparation of which she had received a grant from the governor. Just recently, Lera became a laureate of the Chelyabinsk Region Governor's Prize in the “Creative Activity” category. I am very happy when students demonstrate their abilities like this. After all, this is exactly why we make a creative environment here, we try to ensure that the guys can create and work professionally. When they are engaged in such serious matters, then they begin to understand the essence of the profession. And the essence is to make material that people need and for which you yourself will be responsible with both your head and heart. Therefore, when our students make such socially significant materials, I calm down inside, realizing that our television journalism is in good hands both in the regions and in Russia. It has a future.
− Not long ago, the Television and Radio Company has become part of the Institute of Media, Social Sciences and Humanities structure. How did this change the work?
− I would like to say a huge thank you to Nataliia Tuchkova, Olga Maruseeva, Sergey Gordienko, Matvey Sholokhov, cameraman Daniil Rukavitsyn and our alumni who are now working at the Television and Radio Company – Anastasiia Levitskaya, Anastasiia Shvets, Vlad Urvantsev. Thank you very much for devoting a lot of time to teaching students. For having the patience, time and desire for this. As the head of the Department of Journalism, Advertising and Public Relations, I really appreciate this work, I thank everyone, and I believe that together we are doing everything right.
That is why it is very logical that SUSU-TV is structurally part of the Institute of Media, Social Sciences and Humanities. This allows us to build the educational process as it is currently being built at the institute, and, most importantly, to participate in the formation of the unified information agenda that is promoted by the institute, which is supervised by Lidiya Lobodenko and which allows our university to be among the top five universities in Russia in terms of media coverage and in the Top 20 of the M-RATE ranking of Russian universities based on the results of the year ending.
– What are the plans and prospects of the Television and Radio Company?
– The most important tasks of SUSU-TV are to meet the status of SUSU as a national research university, to form the image of our university as a leading and major centre of science, education and culture, to maintain advanced positions, to keep up with technical progress and to train journalists of the 21st century. And we have plenty of ideas for that.