The students went to the Great National Assembly Square to cover the protest rally in the heart of Chisinau. The students engaged in the exercise that is part of the News Course taught at SAJ during September 7-11.

'It was interesting and sometimes unexpected. It's my first experience of such kind. I was scared at first, but I tried to talk to people and, to my surprise, they were very open to discussion. If I weren't a SAJ student, I don't know whether I would have had the courage to go to Square and talk to the people there,' said Veronica Tabureanu.

The News Course is the first hands-on course at SAJ, aiming at building news writing skills both in class and onsite. The students learn how to express their thoughts clearly, concisely and exhaustively, while avoiding distortion of information, how to quote and how to write headlines.

'After having discussed what a piece of news should look like since Monday, it was high time to try doing it. And was there a better place for it than the Great National Assembly Square today? We decided to leave class to show them how one should interact with the sources of information, how one should ask questions, how one chooses an angle of coverage etc.,' said trainer Diana Railean.

The News Course lasts five days and will be followed, starting from September 14, by a course on photojournalism.