”When I came to Chisinau School of Advanced Journalism I was a kind of tabula rasa in journalism and I can claim that I am a hundred percent product of this School”
He was enrolled to the Chisinau School of Advanced Journalism (CSAJ) in 2007 and continued working hard as a reporter at Pro TV Chisinau. TV and online journalism is what he likes doing. For the moment he took a break in reporting and is engaged with coordination and production activity. He claims that future is something that cannot be foreseen and doesn’t exclude the possibility of returning into the “reporters’ team”. He love football, he played it for some time, but now it is only a hobby. All this is about Cristian Jardan, online content coordinator of Mediaproduction.
I have a family connection with journalism, but I haven’t thought that this will become my future. Even though my mother is a journalist and my parents insisted that I followed this path, I learned about the School of Advanced Journalism by accident, in a newspaper ad. At that moment, I wished a change and the thought that came up on my mind was “yes, I want to do that”. Immediately after the admission interview I realized that the School will change my life, which actually happened. When I came to CSAJ, I was a kind of tabula rasa in journalism and I can claim that I am a hundred percent product of the Journalism School.
At the School I learned journalism from the scratch, as I graduated in sociology. I consider that all courses were important; however I was mostly impressed by the course in Media Ethics held by Brăduţ Ulmanu. At that time, that was a point of revolution in our minds. Especially during this course we began understanding what real journalism is. If until then I believed that it was enough to write whatever, no matter how you write it and that’s it, Brăduţ made us realize that it is actually not like that. At that point I realized that journalism is different from what I have imagined – that it means balance, accuracy, respect and many other things. As well, the courses in radio and TV journalism had a strong impact, as we had to opportunity to enter for the first time to the Parliament and Government buildings in order to interview politicians and other important people. Even now I tell everybody that if they want study real journalism it is not necessary to graduate a journalism faculty, but rather enroll to the CSAJ. These were the most intensive, useful and beautiful studies I have ever completed.
While CSAJ was my first alma mater in journalism, Pro TV became my second school. I had my internship at this TV channel and right afterwards I got employed there. Three years of reporting followed. It was hard, but I learned a lot. Later, when online TV department was established, I was offered to coordinate it. As a matter of fact, during the courses at the School I was in love with online. In 2007-2008, Internet seemed to have prospects and I always liked to inform myself from online sources. There are moments when I am nostalgic about reporting. However, honestly speaking, I don’t think I would decide to return to reporting in the nearest future. Maybe that is due to the fact that media market in our country changed and I have a new social and family status.
In order to became a professional in this field, you must be honest, first of all, with yourself and then with the reader, listener or spectator. You must realize that it is not easy to work as a journalist. You need to work hard and be patient. The profession of a journalist requires constant learning; it is not something you may learn once and forever, because in journalism a day will never repeat again. What concerns the qualities a good journalist should master, these include: curiosity, balanced attitude, accuracy, perseverance and seriousness. Without all these qualities you will not achieve anything.
Among the media areas, I prefer online and TV. Working in print press seems to me to be very difficult. It is the classical type of journalism that requires a lot of accuracy, patience and rapidity. It is a more difficult media genre because you may hold in your hands the final product and you can always return to it. TV or radio product is different, you listened/watched it, you may return to it in a day or two in a second showing, but it is not the same as in the case of print press. Maybe because of that, in the past time, the share of print press reduced in comparison to electronic media. If you want to hold the audiences’ attention and interest you always need to provide something new, more diversified subjects. Promptness is not something print press can sell. On the other hand, I realize that print press is the genre where real journalists find themselves.
What can I advise current and future students of the School? An important thing that I understood at the School is that you have to respect your colleagues and trainers because they shape you. “Steal” as much as possible from the School, not equipment or furniture but knowledge, information, skills from trainers, guests of the press clubs, but also from your colleagues. The completion of the School of Advanced Journalism doesn’t guarantee a job in journalism, however if you work hard during the courses, this may help you a lot after those ten months of studies.
Photo by: Eugen Luchianiuc; Anatol Chitorog