Boris Nemtsov Summer School of Journalism in Prague
by Zhanna Nemtsova, Stanford “Draper Hills” alumna ’17, Deutsche Welle show host “Nemtsova.Interview”
The first Boris Nemtsov Summer School of Journalism, a joint project of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation and the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague, was held in Prague between July 16 and August 3. A three-week study program brought together an inaugural group of 29 journalists, bloggers and media activists from Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Europe and the USA, eager to educate themselves on the core principles of quality journalism and modern digital media tools.
The intensive course was combined of academic sessions, workshops and master-classes all taught in Russian. We had 27 lectures trainers and guest speakers.
Elizaveta Osetinskaya, Founder of the Bell project and alumni of the Draper Hills, spoke on the basics of business journalism and start-ups in media.
Arkady Ostrovsky, chief of the Moscow Bureau of «The Economist» talked about the philosophy of the weekly most influential magazine.
Andrey Soldatov and Irina Borogan shared their experience in investigative journalism. Unprecedented advance of IT-technologies requires full-cycle media production and use of efficient SMM-strategies. We offered trainings on digital journalism , video production and distribution in the Internet.
The participants visited offices of biggest media outlets based in Prague. Among them were the headquarters of Radio Liberty and Seznam, a Czech search engine that outstrips Google in terms of the user-base.
We put significant emphasis on deepening participants’ understanding of the Russian contemporary culture and the historic ties between Eastern and Central Europe and Russia. Two films were screened during the School- «Rodnye», a documentary by Vitaliy Manskiy and selected TV series «Etudes on Freedom» by Vladimir Mirzoev. Marek Prihoda, Czech scholar elaborated on the roots of Slavophilism in the Czech Republic and organized sightseeing tours.
The School is not just a three-week program, it is a community that stays in touch after the completion of the study program. One of the requirements is to develop a journalistic story, an investigative report or a multimedia project upon the end of the program. Now our participants are busy working on their projects under the supervision of trainers. Most successful projects will be published by our partnering media outlets.
Though the School was held for the first time we received a record of 450 applications. We encourage post-graduate students who are majoring in Slavic Studies and are interested in Russia and post-Soviet countries to apply next year.
You can follow all updates regarding application process on our FB page Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom.
I would like to thank the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program for the inspiration and impulse it gave to me.
For all the information on Boris Nemtsov Summer School of Journalism write to summerschool@nemtsovfund.org
Photo credit: Pablo Gonzalez and Maria Koroleva
