Digital Future of Journalism is an equivocal name for a joint project presented by the Foundation for Development of Ukraine (Corporate Foundation of System Capital Management owned by Rinat Akhmetov) and Kyiv Mohyla school of journalism on September 5 in Opera Hotel. 
 
Authors of the program are willing to teach to young journalists the digital culture of future media as they say.  Training course will take 10 months and be held at Kyiv Mohyla school of journalism. It includes synthesis of skills and innovative knowledge in three areas: preparation of a high-quality content, consideration of interests of numerous and various audience, and application of the state-of-the-art technologies in journalism. The presentation was the official launch of the program. Therefore, as early as today anyone may fill in an application form at the website http://dfj.org.ua/. On October 20-25, all applicants will be tested. The shortlisted ones will start studying on November 5.
 
This educational program includes 10 weekly modules. During practical training (Evhen Fedchenko, the program manager, states there will be no lectures) the young journalists will get knowledge in:
 
- New media: current situation and prospects. Differences between traditional and new media. New media audience. New requirements to the content and new instruments for information collection and processing. Principles of convergent journalism and professional standards.
 
- News in the multimedia world. Texts for traditional and new media. One story for numerous media. Digital news format. Key requirements to the texts. News ethics.
 
- Multimedia reflection of content in web 2.0. Creation, support and promotion of one's own blog.
 
- Audio in Internet: from a podcast to a radio station. Audio blogs. Principal audio packages. Equipment. Audio pools and other resources.
 
- News in video: shooting, editing, loading, storing, disseminating. Streaming video. Video blogs (Vlogs). Video dissemination in the mobile networks.
 
- Graphics in new media. Digital photo. Infographics. Graphics adoption for various media. Photo pools. User-generated content. Image processing for various media. Image ethics.
 
- Journalistic investigations through computer technologies. Civil journalism.
 
- Economy, business models of new media. Convergent newsroom management. New media advertisement. Copyright.
 
One of modules contemplating knowledge of best world practices will take place outside Ukraine. To receive the program certificate, every student has to develop his or her own project using the knowledge received.
 
Organizers emphasize that this program is not a headhunting, nor is it developed to prepare professionals for their own media. Therefore, employers may feel free to delegate their journalists to open up new media technologies. Members of the Supervisory Board who are media executives (Olexandr Martynenko, General Director of Interfax news agency, Yulia Mostovaya, Editor-in-chief of the Zerkalo Nedeli, Guillermo Schmitt, General Director of Segodnya Publishing House, Natalia Lygachova, editorial director of the Telekritika) have undertaken not to employ the DFJ students for one year.

10:08 06.09.2007/ the Telekritika /