OSCE Mission to Montenegro supports journalism students to strengthen their reporting skills

As part of continuous support to media professionalism, the OSCE Mission to Montenegro presented sets of mobile journalism equipment to Media Studies and Journalism Department of the Faculty of Political Science, University of Montenegro, on 28 October. A three-day training course for journalism students in November will put the donation in use.

The equipment comprised smartphones with stands, mobile interview kits with microphones, tripod kits and corresponding technical add-ons for the efficient use of the equipment. A subsequent training session utilizing the donated equipment will focus on strengthening and modernizing students’ reporting and editing techniques, and their digital skills. The emphasis will be on building up cross-media reporting skills and capacities for multimedia storytelling.

With mobile journalism equipment collected and training sessions to go along, young journalists will be skilled to perform interviews, shoot and edit video material all on the same device, produce news reports rapidly and easily, while preserving production quality.

Dominique Waag, Head of the Mission, said that the rapid evolution of technology has reflected extensively also on the media market, creating high demand for more flexible, faster and on-the-spot news reporting. “Strong technical capacities of aspiring journalists are a prerequisite for keeping up with emerging new media, where mobile journalism plays an essential role as one of the most noteworthy innovations in news production,” said Ambassador Waag.

Milan Marković, Dean of the Faculty of Political Science, in thanking the Mission for a valuable donation, mentioned that the equipment would enable students and academic staff to raise the quality of teaching specialized journalism subjects. “The students will particularly make use of the equipment within the subjects Online Journalism and New Media, and TV Journalism. They will record reports and perform pre-exam duties, improving the quality of their practical work. All of this will make future journalists being fully qualified to work in the media,” said Dean Marković.

During its previous co-operation with the Faculty of Political Sciences in 2020 and 2021, the Mission provided the Media Studies and Journalism Department with various technical equipment, as well as organized training courses on their use. It also organized intensive workshops on project management cycles for academic staff. The Mission will continue to support this Department with activities aimed at strengthening the practical and hands-on teaching of journalism at the University of Montenegro.