To meet with US public official is not easy thing if you are foreign journalist. I have couple of meetings with officials in NY and it became possible only because Paul Klebnikov Foundation support.
If officials do not know you and newspaper you are working for it is difficult for them to see any reason why should they loose their time. (Russian spy scandal made it even more difficult). The only way is recommendation from the part of somebody known to the official. As I noticed it may work. But it will take a long time before it will be possible to develop as much contacts as in native country.
Private companies' representatives and even top persons are much more opened and willing to discuss their professional topics. I have never expected but one top manager invited to come to his house to talk about energy issues. People inside private sector of economy can advise a lot of useful experts. And the experts are really eager to talk.
Independent experts who can comment on different situations in Russia from outside the country are extremely useful. Hope they will be of great helpf when I come home.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Midterm seminars in the University of Missouri; Asbestos project and some news
In the middle of july AFPF organized the trip to St. Louis and University of Missouri where midterm seminars took place. It was great for me to look at other America I'll never be able to see as a tourist. But the most important there were some practicaly useful courses conducted by Journalism School and IRE (Investigative Reporters and Editors) experts.
In particular I have got some basic skill to make small films (here is the link to the short movie I have made during the training. It is the first movie in my life http://www.youtube.com/user/nasryesmat ). I've never expected that films can be produced without complicated expensive equipment just with the help of software which is quite available. Hope we can use the technics to make some documentaries for our newspaper's website. Maybe for investigative reporting in Novaya Gazeta it will be good to diversify the means of presenting information. And small films on different topics showing not only documents and schemes but also some action can be interesting for our audience.
The seminars conducted by IRE experts Mark Horvit and Jaimi Dowdell (National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting) gave me some new knowledge about FOIA, databases and Excel. I am keen on databases so the seminars were interesting for me. As a person who survived in IRE computer-assisted reporting (CAR) 'boot camp' in Missouri I can say that it was extremely helpful experience.
I am also glad to say that The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and BBC Asbestos Project "Dangers In The Dust"(I took part in the Russian part of it) was published and already brought some results (http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/asbestos/). Hope Novaya Gazeta will publish something in Russian.
One more recent thing: my article "Putin's 13" about Russian prime-minister friends businesses around Gasprom was published in Spanish on the website launched by the Press and Society Institute of Venezuela ( http://www.arman-do.info/ ). The work over series of articles "Prime Minister's Friends" published in Novaya Gazeta was supported by SCOOP - the project of Danish Association of Investigative Journalism, the English version is here ( http://i-scoop.org/index.php?id=24&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=926&tx_ttnews[backPid]=215&cHash=c48090ca73&MP=24-216 ).
In particular I have got some basic skill to make small films (here is the link to the short movie I have made during the training. It is the first movie in my life http://www.youtube.com/user/nasryesmat ). I've never expected that films can be produced without complicated expensive equipment just with the help of software which is quite available. Hope we can use the technics to make some documentaries for our newspaper's website. Maybe for investigative reporting in Novaya Gazeta it will be good to diversify the means of presenting information. And small films on different topics showing not only documents and schemes but also some action can be interesting for our audience.
The seminars conducted by IRE experts Mark Horvit and Jaimi Dowdell (National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting) gave me some new knowledge about FOIA, databases and Excel. I am keen on databases so the seminars were interesting for me. As a person who survived in IRE computer-assisted reporting (CAR) 'boot camp' in Missouri I can say that it was extremely helpful experience.
I am also glad to say that The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and BBC Asbestos Project "Dangers In The Dust"(I took part in the Russian part of it) was published and already brought some results (http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/asbestos/). Hope Novaya Gazeta will publish something in Russian.
One more recent thing: my article "Putin's 13" about Russian prime-minister friends businesses around Gasprom was published in Spanish on the website launched by the Press and Society Institute of Venezuela ( http://www.arman-do.info/ ). The work over series of articles "Prime Minister's Friends" published in Novaya Gazeta was supported by SCOOP - the project of Danish Association of Investigative Journalism, the English version is here ( http://i-scoop.org/index.php?id=24&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=926&tx_ttnews[backPid]=215&cHash=c48090ca73&MP=24-216 ).
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