For the first time, Sevastopol Media Weekend gathered journalists and TV hosts of federal TV channels, representatives of the country’s main news agencies and public figures on the same site in the hero-city. Among them are Anatoly Kuzichev, Channel One presenter, Pyotr Lidov-Petrovsky, director of communications for public relations and public relations at Russia Today, Valery Fedorov, director of the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center, secretary of the Russian Union of Journalists of Russia, Yulia Zagitova, and the president of the Foundation for the Protection of National Values Alexander Malkevich.
The governor of Sevastopol, Dmitry Ovsyannikov, together with a delegation of federal media, held a meeting with students of Sevastopol State University and a branch of Moscow State University on Konstantinovsky battery. In the course of the foresight fleet “Choose your path”, students presented their projects to the jury: “Archeology, IT era”, “History of early Christianity in Crimea”, youth international project “Russia Tomorrow”, project “International relations, Sevastopol and Crimea. The space of international cooperation” and “Strengthening humanitarian ties between the Crimea, Sevastopol and the countries of the Mediterranean region.”
Representatives of the professional media community gave an expert assessment of each of the ideas, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses. According to the voting results, the proposal to use IT-technologies in the field of archaeological research was recognized as the best: to digitize relics at the excavation stage and thereby speed up the progress of work and increase the accuracy of fixing monuments. The head of the city noted that for a region in which archaeological research is constantly conducted, this is a very interesting project.
In general, by in the framework of Sevastopol MediaWeekend the students presented projects united by one key idea – overcoming the international isolation of the Crimea and Sevastopol, strengthening the humanitarian ties of Sevastopol and Crimea with the countries of the Mediterranean region using the method of public diplomacy.
“Those projects that were presented by our students are primarily related to the development of Sevastopol, the development of international cooperation. Of course, they require improvement, but we will certainly support our children. Sevastopol MediaWeekend and our work with students are links of one chain in strengthening the information image of Sevastopol not only domestically, but also abroad. It is important that today the leaders and journalists of the leading mass media were here, we want to show our colleagues what is happening here,” said Dmitry Ovsyannikov.
The unconventional approach of students to solving actual problems of the city and region was noted by the rector of SevSU Vladimir Nechaev: “It is important that the media community of the country saw the youth of Sevastopol because Sevastopol is a place for non-standard solutions, standard solutions are not for us, and our students are the main potential of creativity who have the opportunity to communicate with the highest quality professionals”
According to Anatoly Kuzichev, for the jury members meeting with students is an opportunity to find out what youth cares about: “I hope this was useful for the guys, but it was no less useful for me personally: I wanted to understand the thoughts of young people living in the Crimea, find out what is important and relevant for them”.
Alexander Malkevich also noted the high importance of meeting with students.
“In fact, Crimea is now becoming a unique dialogue platform uniting journalists not only from our country, but from the whole world. Just recently, the fifth Yalta International Economic Forum was held, where it was decided to establish the “Crimean International Media Club”. The work of the media club is closely related to the projects of the youth, because it is an attempt to find forms for breaking through the information blockade in which Sevastopol, the Republic of Crimea and Russia as a whole are forced to find themselves. This means that we must develop forms of public diplomacy, communication among civil society activists and journalists,” he said.
It is planned that the first meeting of the media club will be held in the summer. According to Alexander Malkevich, there are a lot of dates, landmark events that connect Crimea with our great country, and this is another reason to solve actual problems of the republic.
MediaWeekend has become an interactive platform for experts to communicate with students and sign business agreements. On the first day of the forum, the Sevastopol government agreed to cooperate with the Russia Today MIA, the All-Russian Centre for the Study of Public Opinion and the Russian Geographical Society.
