Grodno hosted the VI Forum of Young Journalists. Beginner authors of republican, regional and district editorial offices of newspapers, radio and television - more than 120 young media representatives from all regions of Belarus took part in it.
The main topic of discussion was the development of online journalism. Pavel Legkiy, the First Deputy Minister of Information of the Republic of Belarus, having met with young authors, stressed that Internet journalism is not a new trend, today this trend is actively developing all over the world. And Belarus is no exception. According to Pavel PavelLegkiy, the main thingis to prepare a high-quality personnel base for working with network media, including at the regional level.
- It is important that online journalism develops evenly in all regions of our country, said Pavel Legkiy, theFirst Deputy Minister of Information. The creation of full-fledged convergent sites based on the media is a requirement of today. But in order to achieve success in this direction, we need truly educated, well-trained personnel. It is important that not only novice journalists, but also those who have been working in the industry for a long time, constantly develop, obtain new knowledge, and increase their competencies.
Next year, according to Pavel Legkiy, it is planned to increase the number of training seminars, trainings and master classes for young journalists with the participation of both Belarusian and foreign speakers.
By the way, the practical part of the forum was really rich - young journalists attended training seminars of several successful experts from the media industry of Belarus. In particular, they talked about technologies for creating and effectively promoting YouTube channels, media content on social networks and even a personal brand.
Sergei Kuzmenko, founder and director of Web & Market, speaker of the Academy Webcom, told young journalists about how to work with information content on social networks, and what common errors should be taken into account.
-Many media in the process of promoting content through social networks lack a strategic approach, said Sergey Kuzmenko. We pften see a sample news feed. But for a start, it is important to clearly define the portrait of the target audience, and then segment the information by creating, for example, not one group in a social network, but several different topics at once that can satisfy the interests of a particular readership. This is one of the surest paths to success.
YuliaTymoshchuk, the editor of the Internet resource of the Schuchin district newspaper “Dzyannitsa”, gave a lot of useful information for the training sessions: - After participating in the practical seminars of the forum, I realized that what matters is not so much the formal number of subscribers, but the reach of the audience. People have to visit your group daily - this is one of the main indicators of the interest of readers to the proposed content.
-This is definitely an important aspect for modern journalists and for the media industry as a whole — not intuitively determining the desires of users, but building a clear paradigm for media presence on the Internet and on social networks. Content today is the main thing and not to leave it, and with it you need to clearly define the channels of delivery of the media product to the consumer. And this forum is especially useful from this point of view - its practicality and real-life cases, says Natalya Konovod, editor of the IT department at “Grodzenskaya Pravda”. In turn, another speaker of this forum in the light of the exponential development of video formats in the Internet media confirms: YouTube is the platform where modern media formats converge. It was Yevgeny Solonovich who spoke at the forum in Grodno about technologies for creating and promoting YouTube channels.
- Internet video services are a completely different world, and here other rules for creating content and its promotion work than in traditional media. It is important to understand. But even preliminary metrics show that advertisers are more and more willing to come to the same YouTube, the speaker stresses.
The forum also held a master class, which was read by Denis Blisch, who analyzed the principles of building a personal brand in social networks.
Within the framework of the forum, the traditional award of the Belarusian Union of Journalists “Debut” was solemnly presented.
- Most of the works this year were presented by regional authors, said Sergey Sverkunov, the Deputy Chairman of the Belarusian Union of Journalists NGO. All works were very interesting and worthy of appreciation. It should be noted that the materials turned out to be very diverse in topics and genres, but the greatest number of them was devoted to a small homeland.
This year, more than 30 beginner talented authors claimed to win the competition, but only 13 young journalists became laureates in various nominations.
The debut "Debut" in the nomination "The best author of regional and corporate media" was the young journalist "Grodzenskayapravda" Anna Radyuk.
