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Euro Caucasus News : Interview with Nicolas Froehner
Launched in September 2011 by CFI, the Euro Caucasus News project aims to train young journalists from the Caucasus in news reporting and new media geared around European themes.
Gathered together at a workshop in September, the 12 students (4 Armenians, 4 Georgians and 4 Azeris) set up and posted on the eurocaucasusnews.com blog, with the support of two CFI experts, Nicolas Froehner, TV reporter, and Prune Antoine, journalist.
In October, these experts visited all the schools partnering the project - GIPA (Georgian Institute of Public Affairs) in Tbilisi (Georgia), the Caucasus Institute in Erevan (Armenia) and the Baku School of Journalism (Azerbaijan) – for a 1-week session catering more closely to the young journalists’ specific needs.
Nicolas Froehner shared his thoughts on these first two workshops.
How was the first Euro Caucasus News session organised?
It was held at the GIPA premises in Tbilisi. From the outset we were training three teams of different nationalities. We aimed to get them operating as if in a real newsroom, choosing each team’s topics every morning. Prune Antoine and I complemented each other: as a TV reporter, I focussed on footage and supported the teams in the field, whereas she concentrated more on content and copy. The students posted videos, texts, photos and slideshows on the site every day of the week.
What difficulties did you encounter during the workshop?
Juggling three teams of three different nationalities took some sorting! Even if they all had basic journalism skills, they had varying levels of skills and experience in journalism and some had never worked on blogs. Their pace and methods varied. And they weren’t used to working in English since they usually worked in Russian. But they all got on in the end!
How did the second session go in each country?
For us trainers, it went much more smoothly. Working with just four students from the same country meant we could zoom in on technical skills. By the end the students were very proud of their publications, which they also published on their own Facebook pages. We also struck up a partnership with the website Café Babel Café Babel, which published some of our reports, for greater international outreach.
The last Euro Caucasus News workshop is to be held in Strasbourg from 13 to 19 November 2011. What will you be focussing on?
This workshop will be taking place during a parliamentary session. So we will be taking a special interest in how European institutions work, for example the European Parliament or the European Court of Justice. These young journalists will be getting a week-long taste of journalism abroad which will be useful for making contacts and networking. This is of utmost importance to journalists and one of the aims of Euro Caucasus News.
