How some of our participants see EYMD? Are they satisfied, tired, inspired or something else? :) Find out below:

"On the day 2 of our awesome EYMD, I finally got over of how impressive the Parliament buildings are! The dynamics of this place is inspiring and motivating for any young journalist. Personally, I will take away all the professional and, especially, personal advises we all received from guest speakers on the discussion panel and on the workshops. Originally from Armenia, I study in the American University in Bulgaria and EYMD 2012 gave me a throughout feel of EP, Brussels and EU journalism. *Not to even talk about the EP Canteen (seriously, that place had EU flag even on the cups!)."

Diana

"I am in the Photo WS 2...I really pushed to be in this WS, so I am really happy to be able to develop the link between crisis and migration. 

We do not have much time to shoot and finalise everything, but we are working very hard and being inventive in order to show a nice product to the EYMD public.

As I said, I'm really interested in this topic, so I hope that what I've produced now, will be a base to further develop this project.

New ideas and networking...this is what I want to bring with me after this event will be finished...

Now...back to work! :-)"

Valentina

(c) European Union 2012 - European Parliament, photo by Pietro Naj-Oleari

"I am very satisfied with EYMD because I've heard a lot of useful things about economical issue in EU and great tips from journalists having a huge experience in this area. Also, I've met a lot of new people, had opportunity to hear what they think about problems in EU, how media work in their countries. Workshop was very interesting, and all of us had task to chose some topic about EU, and write an article.  And, in the and I would like to say that our facilitators are the best."

Snežana

Workshops reports on the ground

MULTIMEDIA 1 - @Crisis: From the social networks to the streets

Facilitator: Mihaela Georgescu

Our workshop started with Thilo Kunzemann - who is in charge of the Twitter account of the EP and Steven Blaakman - who is in charge of the Facebook account of the EP - talking about what doing social media for the parliament means, what works best, what strategy they follow. 

Then, we had a long brainstorming with lots of great ideas about how to make the best of our topic: @Crisis: from the social media to the streets. 

Although we had problems with the room and lost a lot of time, the participants were quite excited about their final ideas for the outcomes and were eager to get down to work! :)

MULTIMEDIA 2 - I will survive: surfing the crisis as a journalist entrepreneur

Facilitator: Erik Aerts

Pending..

Workshops reports on the ground

RADIO 1 - Talk of a crisis: stories of people affected by the crisisand the solutions they found out of it

Facilitators: Rebecca Bengtsson & Lana Durjava

Today, the amazing group in  the radio workshop the "Talk of a crisis: stories of people affected by the crisis and the solutions they found out of it" started off with an editorial meeting in the morning, followed by a great talk  and Q&A with Slovenian journalists and Brussels correspondent Matjaz Trost and ending the day with working on their production. They are all super excited and enthusiastic about the workshop and EYMD, and seem to be having a lot of fun!

RADIO 2 - Social entrepreneurship in times of crisis: the radio as a means to educate young people

Facilitator: Ania Morawiec

So this radio workshop works right NOW on creating a podcast about social entrepreneurship in times of crisis: talking to parlamentarians, pedestrians and experts. Looking forward to hear the results.

Workshops reports on the ground

TV 1 - Stay hungry, stay foolish: reporting on the impact of the crisis on youth

Facilitator: Dobriyana Tropankeva

Hard working and enthusiastic, young tv journalists, from all over the Europe, two days worked on a short TV show. Even thought we came with already prepared scripts and assigned tasks, we still had a lot of work to do. We prepared reports from the Panel, and EYMD's report in general. Our main topic was „Stay hungry, stay foolish“, and we have done some interesting videos on economy crisis, like, Explaining the crisis - historical perspective in a video, Belgium elections - News story and Youth unemployment - issue story. To have a break from work, we had a very interesting lecture from well known journalists.

TV 2 - It matters but I don't care: how to address the social effect of crisis with an unconcerned audience

Facilitator: Joyce Taylor

The workshop started already stressy. The topic of our newsitem was at the start of the workshop still unclear. We supposed to broadcast about the youth and the crisis, but we ended up with the Nobel Peace Prize. We asked young journalist how the prize was received in their country.

Several things went wrong;) We had the camera crew only for ten minutes and it was very hard to find the participants who fitted in our format. And how do you edit a newsitem? We didn't know. But fortunately we had Joyce!! She was great!

Workshops reports on the ground

PRINT - Europhobia: How to explain European policies in times of austerity

Facilitators: Armand Feka & Bettina Benzinger

21 young journalists, three speakers from politics, journalism and academia, two workshop days, one 'Orange'-magazine to be filled and the question of how to explain European policies in times of austerity - these are the hard facts of the print workshop at the EYMDs 2012.

(c) Charles Lother

The first workshop day puts the participants into a thight schedule: MEP Jörg Leichtfried (Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament) gives the particiants insights into the work of an MEP, before leaving to the airport and the next appointment already. The visit of guest speaker Raimund Löw, chief of the correspondence office in Brussels of the Austrian public TV ORF, gives the opportunity to the participants to get information about the life and work of a Brussels correspondent first-hand. Manfred Kohler brings the discussions to academia, focusing on the discourse about the euro crisis:  A Foucauldian expression of power relations or reality? The last speaker leaves - and work starts for the participants, with Wednesday night being their deadline for articles.

(c) Charles Lother

 Editing, layouting, finalizing - the final spurt is on for Thursday in order to deliver an 'Orange'-magazine that is worth to carry this name. 

Workshops reports on the ground

PHOTO 1 - A wealth of hungry people: photographing the changes brought by the crisis

Facilitator: Alessandro di Maio

A wealth of hungry people: photographing the changes brought by the crisis - is composed by eight people from all over Europe. After the morning panel, we had a pleasant time together introducing each other, presenting our working experiences and trying to identify the best ways to cover our topic. The group became immediately united and this created a serene and collaborative atmosphere. From 15:30 to 5 pm the group joined the Photography workshop 2 and met one of the photographer of the Photo Collective project "Out of Focus". The photographer showed some of his best photographic projects, answering to the many questions of the participants and explaining a few photographic technics. After the meeting with the media expert, the group left the European Parliament for its first photo shooting session. They got in touch with he organizers of a soup kitchen and at 5:30 pm they reached the place for the photographic project. Everything is going well!! :)

(c) European Youth Media Days - FB page

PHOTO 2 - In a better place: reporting on crisis-driven migration

Facilitator: Alain Le Treut

After a small introduction, the participants of the Photo Workshop n°2: "In a better place: reporting on a crisis-driven migration" decided to split in 2 subgroups to organize some shootings on different spots. 

They want to portray migrants in Brussels, with very different fates.

One group of four participants went immediately for a first shooting session by the NGO "Serve the city".

The second part of the Workshop, together with the Photo workshop 1, received at 15:30 the visit of the photograph Colin Delfosse from the "Out of Focus" collective. This independent free-lance reporter was fascinating: he gave lots of inputs about photography and presents us lots series he did around the globe or sometimes sold to major media groups. He has been also very transparent about his incomes and how he manages his business. He also gave two participants the possibility to show briefly their personal works.

The two half of the group got together at 18:15 in the workshop room for the intervention of Nicola Flamigni and his successor for the "Undocumentary" project: Alexandrine Pirlot de Corbion. After watching together a small extract of their production, we had an interesting discussion about issues regarding illegal migration and its repression in Europe.

Curious about what is happening at EYMD 2012? 

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EYMD 2012 Daily report

BRUSSELS, 16/17. 10. 2012. - First day of EYMD 2012 brought together around 100 young journalists from all around Europe. They invaded European Parliament with their enthusiasm, creativity and curiosity, keen to find out more on ways to report about euro crisis.

@Martin Hanzel

This year’s edition hosted almost as double participants than last year, including young journalists from Balkans (Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova) for the first time. Kate Morton, European Youth Press (EYP) board member showed special satisfaction about this fact, underlining that “we want to have dialog as young people, not only as journalists”. In a certain way, her opening words gave direction to general atmosphere that will follow other panellists and discussion, by stating that this crisis have deeper context than just economical, in a sense of basic values such as peace, solidarity and democracy.

Rebecca Christie (Bloomberg News), Christian Feld (ARD German TV), Teresa Küchler, (Svenska Dagbladet), Bruno Waterfield (The Daily Telegraph), Matina Stevis (The Wall Street Journal), Hans Martens (European Policy Centre), discussed together with Dobriyana Tropankeva and Maximilian Kall from EYP about The role of media in explaining the crisis during opening panel. Discussion of euro crisis took course in direction of journalism as profession in general. In reply to Juana Lahousse-Juarrez’s (DG Comm, EP) remark from opening speech that journalists are seen as natural partners in reinforcing positive image of EU, Teresa Küchler questioned position of journalists as tools of any institution and invited rather to being critical and responsible instead.

Young journalists were also advised to keep learning, especially in field of finances, topic which often can be hard to understand. Matina Stevis, who has background in economics also confirmed this fact and reminded young reporters to pay attention how much their education in some field and therefore certain convictions can interfere their reporting, admitting that she wasn’t immune to it either.

Will EU crisis ever be over? – Question was raised. Hans Martens, concluded that growth and jobs are what we need to focus on. But, since “growth is not a policy or outcome per se” as Stevis said, from journalistic point of view there is a need for more activity, asking questions, investing in education and to keep in mind as Bruno Waterfield summed it – that “news is not what you were told by some authority, but something that you have to go out and find out yourself”.

Of course, inevitable subject was recent Nobel Peace Prize that EU won. Within EYMD panel discussion it was questioned in context of euro crisis and if we need it in order to be more positive about historical project of EU. “You have to ask question why now. Reason is that EU is in such a trouble. Nobel prize should give boost to the moral and to remind people to foundation of this peace project”, Waterfield stated.

Panel discussion on second day of EYMD, under title The future of Europe and the Euro, What price democracy? also gave some space to this topic. “For the first time Committee made political decision. Why? To remind us that we have duty to stay together on basis of our values”, MEP Pervenche Berès, Chair of EP Employment and Social Affairs, said alluding to this EYMD’s edition title “Divided we stand?”.

Other panellists here were: MEP Anni Podimata (EP Vice-President in charge of Communication Committee), MEP Jean-Paul GauzeÌ€s (Member of EP Economic and Monetary Affairs), Thomas Friedrich  (Member of the International Press Association), Tom Weingärtner (Member of the International Press Association) and Sebastian Olényi (EYP).

With different opinions on this topic on mind, given by journalists, EU representatives and fellow colleagues, EYMD 2012 participants continued their on-the-ground work in form of: photo, print, multimedia, radio and TV workshops.

For more info about their progress and final products stay tuned to youthmediadays.eu!