The last course of academic year 2015-2016 brought SAJ students to Lozova village in Straseni district, where they found inspiration and researched information for the community newspaper that they produced afterwards. The 12 pages of the “Viața Lozovei” (“Life of Lozova”) publication reflected the villagers’ destinies – with their successes and disappointments, regrets and hopes. In producing the newspaper, students were guided by trainers Petru Macovei and Angela Ivanesi.

Training, research, writing, editing, laying out, and printing of the “Viaţa Lozovei” newspaper took seven days. On the first day of the course, trainer Petru Macovei spoke to students about the peculiarities of work in a community newspaper, and young people learned the defining elements of this journalistic genre. Then students appointed by voting the editorial team. Natalia Ghetu became editor-in-chief, Olimpia Begleta – editor, Liliana Croitor – layout designer. The other students acted as reporters and they had to produce two materials each.

The most difficult, but also captivating, stage was travelling to Lozova. Once they reached the destination, students had several hours to speak with the members of the local council and to go around the village in search of interesting topics where it seemed there were none. Some of them even went several kilometers on foot until they found villagers with stories worthy to appear on the pages of a newspaper.

Then there were several stressful days of editorial work, when students wrote, edited, and laid out articles. Then, finally, they sent the newspaper to the printing house. The following day, their end product was on the table, and the publication was analyzed in the smallest details. The trainer appreciated the students’ work and said he was impressed by the topics and stories discovered by them. “‘Viaţa Lozovei’ meets all the criteria of a community newspaper,” Petru Macovei said.

Having analyzed the product and noted all the mistakes they made, SAJ students went back to Lozova and handed out to the villagers the first, and so far the only, newspaper written one hundred percent about them and for them. While some villagers smiled when they found their relatives or neighbors on the pages, others were displeased that nothing had been written about them… We promised to return to Lozova and look for other life stories.

SAJ students were also impressed by the result, and especially by the process, of creation, from start to end, of a newspaper. Editor-in-chief Natalia Ghetu says that the publication of a community newspaper requires a lot of work, creativity, and team spirit. “It was a beautiful experience for every one of us. We met people with life stories worthy of journalists’ attention,” she said.

Student Iurii Botnarenco believes that the experience he had in Lozova will help him do better when he gets to work in a media outlet: “It was a serious challenge to find topics for news stories and reports in a village we knew nothing about. For the first time we felt as if we were a true editorial team.” In her turn, Lia Ciutac finds that community journalism made her see the people of a community in a different light. “We learned about the problems of a village, we got to know special people with their stories. It has all been described in a newspaper prepared specially for them, the people of Lozova,” Lia said.