What are the criteria that ensure the success of a media outlet? How the work is organized in an editorial office and how to manage a team of reporters, cameramen, drivers, editors and publishers? Is or not the media a business and how much does it cost to launch a TV, radio station, or a news portal? SAJ students have learned all that at the course of Media Management.

After many practical courses, deadlines and texts written against the stop-watch, which they started the year with, the students of the School of Advanced Journalism have put their pens aside and focused on ideas of launching business in the media. The future journalists met the heads of several media outlets from the Republic of Moldova and discussed the launch and management of a radio station, a TV station and a regional periodical. Special emphasis was put on the development and implementation of projects in the media.

In order to learn and understand how each media outlet works, the course was divided into four modules. The first was dedicated to radio management and was held by the instructor Adrian Petcu, head of the News editorial office of Radio Moldova. He spoke to the SAJ students about the schedule of a radio reporter, about the rights and obligations of the public station’s employees, about wages and advantages of working at a state institution... The next module, also intriguing, related to the management of a TV station. From the instructor Dorin Scobioala, director of the production house "Cat Studio" and correspondent for Reuters TV and Antenna 3 in Moldova, the young journalists have learned how a TV station “survives,” how to form a team working on TV, how to create the budget and how broadcast licenses are issued. The students have found the cost of an advertising minute, what a broadcast schedule is, how and who measures the TV audience, what prime-time and off-time are, and many other things.

How to cope with competition and manage a regional newspaper? The answers came within the third module, dedicated to the management of printed press. Together with the instructor Lucia Bacalu-Jardan, director of the regional newspaper "Expresul" from Ungheni, the students talked about local media and the problems faced by newspapers - advertising, distribution, print runs, publishing facilities, etc.

How can an idea become a successful media project? The transformation of an idea into a media product has been discussed and demonstrated within the last module, dedicated to developing media projects. Having ten years of experience in the field of media projects management, the instructor Ina Grejdeanu, Strategic Development Officer at the Independent Journalism Center, explained to the future journalists what a project is and how it should be written. Young people have discussed planning, innovation, costs, creativity, evaluation, team and monitoring.

Students have also learned how to write a funding application and how to convince donors, have noted the stages of management and, last but not least, they learned that a successful project must be as original as possible. „A good project has to include the idea of changes for the better, and a well-structured plan makes 90% of success,” added the instructor in the end of the course.

These days, the School of Advanced Journalism continues the course of Business Journalism.