For a full week, I have the privilege to teach 17 Journalism students of the
Caucasus Institute in Yerevan, Armenia, all about web journalism. The institute has the name for a reason: its students are not only from Armenia but from Georgia, Azerbeidzjan, Ossetia and Chechnya as well. Obviously, there is a lot to explain, discuss and demonstrate: there are more books published about how the Web is changing journalism than one could read in a lifetime - although most authors tend to agree on one thing: the future of journalism is online.
The promise of online journalism has perhaps even greater relevance and urgency for countries without a self sustaining print press - Armenian newspapers are not commercially viable (the largest print medium is a weekly, selling only 3,000 copies) and depend on sponsors, typically oligarchs with a political agenda. In countries where objective journalism is practically non-existent, Web journalism has great potential. Maybe there isn't much of a business model for online journalism, at least you don't need to affiliate with political entities seeking to exert influence on public issues, just to be able to pay the publishing bill.
That's why, for the past two days, I have not only been demonstrating and lecturing. After the first day of lecturing and discussing, I decided to build a website, a multimedia group blog. Today, all students have learned how to blog with pictures and video (only one or two had ever published text online before, apart from social networking websites). Tomorrow, they'll be doing some actual reporting about important issues, by analyzing how other media are writing about it and by seeking additional sources.
That's why I'll stop blogging now and be back tomorrow, with a link to the site...
