In Tuesday students from all over the Balkans met in Ruse and in the late afternoon was given the official start of the project „HEADlines“. Guests came from BRIE from the University of Ruse, the International Elias Canetti Society as well as experts who would guide the work of each individual group of students.

After the speeches of Mrs. Kornazheva, Director of BRIE Ruse and Mrs. Popova the project was launced with the presentation of the participants and a quiz on media.

Early in the morning the group visited the lokal newspaper editorial office of  „Brjag“ and after that the national television BNT Sever and the local radio station Darik, where they saw details from the daily routine of the reporters, learned more on layouts and equipment and learned more on the exclusive news in Ruse. The participants received answers to many questions.

In the afternoon began the individual team work. The radio, television and newspaper teams were introduced to specifics of each medium by media experts and had the opportunity to put it into practice.

„Strategies of manipulation in the media“ was the topic of the Thursday morning lecture. It gave the participants an insight in the techniques of manipulation in the world of the media, in particular in the advertisement and the war reports. The afternoon team work went on and the radio, press and television teams had a practical assignment – interviews with citizen of Ruse and processing the gathered materials in order to make a finished media product.

From Germany arrived the experienced journalist and media expert Vesselin Dimitrov and gave a lecture on the freedom of press on the Balkans in which he pointed out the differences and the similarities in the Balkan countries from his personal experience. In the afternoon the finishing touches on the individual media projects were made, among which the shooting, editing, writing and designing the layout of the products.

After the radio, television and press teams discussed the presentation possibilities on a press-conference began the official presentation of the projects, attended by guests from the university and the local media. The television team presented a 10-minute film on the seminar in the style of news emission and the press team handled the Balkans issue in a special edition of a newspaper as well as presented a project for a future blog. The radio team presented the local music scene through professional interviews and opinion surveys.

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