Overfilled with emotions and optimism, despite fatigue, proud of their achievements – that is how one could describe the students of the 11th graduating class the School of Advanced Journalism, who presented on May 30 their most important work of the year – the Final Project. Out of the eleven students, four made materials for radio, two made television reports, other four wrote articles for print media, and one tried his hand at online journalism. Final projects were presented to the group of media experts and practitioners, namely: Vasile Botnaru, Director of the Bureau of Radio Free Europe; Viorica Zaharia, Chair of the Press Council; Cristian Jardan, Director of Unimedia.md portal; Elena Cioina, Media Manager of the www.e-sanatate.md platform; Dorin Scobioala, Director of the “Cat Studio” production company; and Sorina Stefirta, Director of the School of Advanced Journalism. They evaluated the final works in accordance with the criteria adopted by the SAJ.

The students had three weeks to do their final projects, during which they worked under the guidance of tutors, who are also trainers of the SAJ: Liliana Barbarosie, journalist at Radio Free Europe; Alina Radu, Director of the “Ziarul de Garda” newspaper; Alina Turcanu, editor at Radio Free Europe; Andrei Cibotaru, TV-journalist; Tatiana Etco, journalist at Radio Free Europe; and Liliana Nicolae, reporter and editor at the Europa FM radio from Bucharest. Along with their more experienced colleagues, young journalists put into practice all the knowledge and skills they gained during the nine months of training. In their work on materials, students had to take into account objectivity, originality, correctness, accuracy, inspiration, neutrality, and impartiality.

Like in previous years, the majority of students chose social topics. Thus, Dumitrita Andriuta reported about children suffering from malnutrition; Alina Filimon told about in vitro fertilization as a solution to the problem of infertility; Parascovia Spic presented in detail the current situation at the “Moldova-film” studio; Eugeniu Kanskii reported in his article about the “Nicusor” rehabilitation center located in Gratiesti village of Chisinau municipality, where dozens of children and young people with special needs come daily; and Liliana Botnariuc reported on why young physicians do not want to start their career at home but prefer to leave and work abroad.

Student Maria Svet told us how Moldova missed the opportunity to fully implement a funding project in the field of energy efficiency (MoREEFF project); Mariana Matcovschi tried to find out how and why the shortage of teaching staff provokes changes in the system; Adriana Vlas told us what a young person should do to become a student of a top university abroad; Liliana Chisari talked about how the law on adoptions functions in Moldova; Nicolae Galaju reminded us about the problem of unauthorized waste dumps; and Cristina Cornescu made a TV report on the so-called “home schooling” and what this method of learning at home involves.

Members of the evaluation commission congratulated future journalists for their effort. According to them, all projects complied, to a greater or lesser extent, with the standards of journalism. They also drew the students’ attention to the mistakes they made and urged them to focus in their future materials as much as possible on the topic, to write simply and, most important, accurately. “Don’t generate more questions in your articles,” suggested Sorina Stefirta, Director of the SAJ.

For some of the SAJ students the public presentation of the final project felt like an exam they passed splendidly. Parascovia Spiс said that work on the final project was her most exciting experience at the School. “I couldn’t even imagine that I’d put so much emotion into every word I write. I wanted to prove myself that I can do it, but even more than that I did not want to disappoint my tutor,” the student said.

Cristina Cornescu is also proud of her report. According to her, the success of a final work is in choosing an original topic. “If you don’t have a good topic, then try to tackle it in a most unusual way. Write something different than other journalists. This is what teachers taught us throughout the school year,” she said.

The School of Advanced Journalism is a project of the Independent Journalism Center in Chisinau in partnership with the Missouri School of Journalism, USA, and the Center for Training and Perfection of Journalists in Paris, France. The SAJ was launched on September 4, 2006 with a view to prepare universal journalists for the media in Moldova.