The school has built good contacts within the media sector and mediates in finding a suitable internship for its students. This proves to be a success. In fact, many of the organizations offering internships hire their intern students right away. The high quality education of the school is highly appreciated and the school thereby contributes successfully to fill the lack of professional journalists. Christian Jardan (25) says that the most important thing he has learned is “that news is a product that has to be produced and that one has to be very careful with information.” Christian applied these lessons during his internship and was offered a job at one of the most important Moldovan TV stations. Veronica Gherbovetchii (24) also enjoyed her internship since she “could organize meetings and had a lot of responsibility in determining the topics to be covered.” Ziarul de Garda, the newspaper where she did her internship, appreciated the school’s emphasis on the practical side of journalism and Veronica’s investigative skills. Unsurprisingly, managers within the media sector are interested in the school’s programme and want to cooperate. Vasile Botnaru, analyst at Radio Free Europe, concludes: “I am happy that I could choose such a good reporter.”

 

Some students’ graduation works were selected for publication. Diana Lunga’s (23) article about a village in the north, Holosnita, which is threatened by desertion by its inhabitants, was published in the national weekly “Ziarul de Garda”. She “wrote about old people, about children who are left alone because their parents are working abroad, about transport, and education in our schools”. Diana also keeps a blog to comment on local events.

 

The Chisinau School, which has been supported by Press Now since 2007, was created in 2006 to satisfy the high demand for skilled and critical journalists on the Moldovan media market. Due to the problem of brain drain in the country finding and keeping skilled trainers is the main challenge. Academic coordinator Vitalie Dogaru describes it bluntly: “there are professors of journalism in the Republic of Moldova who never wrote a line but are able to teach others how to do it, and there are good journalists lacking teaching abilities.” The need to educate teachers, for trainings of trainers, is therefore still very important. With the help of Press Now, training sessions have been organized about online journalism, radio management, and curricula development. Asked what the priorities are for improving the school even further Dogaru answers that the admission of the school into professional bodies like associations of trainers or schools would consolidate the image of the school further.