First Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation Digital Journalism School completed

Students of SCF Digital Journalism School: Ljubinka Ljujić, Marija Vučić, Vanja Kolar, Dragana Prica, Dunja Stojković i Aldina Luinović

Ljubinka Ljujić from Prijepolje and Marija Vučić from Niš, the most successful students, are to be rewarded by study trip abroad

First Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation Digital Journalism School was completed by last weekend’s workshop organized in Belgrade.

Students of the first generation were Aldina Luinović (Prijepolje), Vanja Kolar(Subotica), Dragana Prica (Novi Sad), Dunja Stojković (Pančevo), Ljubinka Ljujić(Prijepolje) i Marija Vučić (Niš). All of them successfully graduated.

Mentors declared Marija Vučić and Ljubinka Ljujić as the most successful in School courses (Journalism Ethics, Digital Journalism, Analytical Journalism and Investigative Journalism). The decision was unanimous. Ljubinka and Marija are to be rewarded by a study trip abroad.

PRECIOUS EXPERIENCE

“I’m glad that I will have an opportunity to see how local media in well ordered European countries work, how they finance their work, what problems they have, how they solve those problems and how they serve public interest. I hope I will be able to apply some of that experience in my work,” Ms Marija Vučić said.

“Since I work for TV, which is quite different from digital media, it was very useful to learn how to write for online media and understand how a web portal works. Knowledge about analytical information processing, investigative reporting techniques and solving ethical dilemmas in everyday work, these are all quite useful.

It will be precious experience for me as a young journalist to see at first hand how local media abroad function, which stories they report on and in what way, and to learn about the status of journalism as a profession in other countries,” Ms Ljubinka Ljujić said.

Jelena Ćuruvija, honorary president of the Foundation, and Ilir Gaši, executive director, presented the diplomas to the graduates. They expressed great satisfaction by accomplishments of graduate students and emphasized that School curriculum proved to be very useful for young journalists of local media in Serbia.

“The purpose of this program of Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation is to strengthen local media and their journalists in order to preserve their independence and improve quality of their reporting, amid increased financial and political pressures.

„The purpose of this program of Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation is to strengthen local media and their journalists in order to preserve their independence and improve quality of their reporting, amid increased financial and political pressures“. (Ilir Gaši)

Development of digital journalism and digital local media is strategic goal of the Foundation. Internet offers more freedom and production is less demanding financially. It is a part of insuppressible technological trend,” Mr. Gaši said.

As it turned out, the fact that mentors and students were not even in the same city during the lectures wasn’t an obstacle for quality work. On a contrary. Congruous to central theme of the School, training was almost entirely conducted over a specialized online collaboration platform, which mentors and students utilized for everyday communication, exchange of documents and accomplishing assignments.

During more than 200 hours of online work and six days of live lectures organized in three workshops, students learned about writing for online media, utilizing social media for distribution and promotion of media content, safety of journalists, investigative reporting tools, everyday ethical dilemmas and other important reporting skills.

Students of the first generation of Digital Journalism School will become part Foundation’s alumni program.

School’s closing ceremony was attended by mentors Maja Divac, Executive Director of Mreža Production Group, Pavle Zlatić, Chief Editor of B92 website, Perica Gunjić, Chief Editor of Cenzolovka website and Zoran B. Nikolić, Executive Editor of Cenzolovka website, guest lecturers Anđela Milivojević (CINS) and Vladimir Kostić (CINS), as well asAna Firtel and Milan Antonijević, members of Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation Managing Board.

Guest lecturers during School’s workshops were eminent journalists Olja Bećković(NIN), Ljubica Gojgić (RTV Vojvodina), Magda Janjić (Vice), Dino Jahić (CINS) and Predrag Blagojević (Južne vesti).

Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation Digital Journalism School will resume in the Spring of 2016, with next generation of students.

Digital Journalism School is realized through partnership with National Endowment for Democracy.