In early April, Moscow hosted School Press Days, bringing together more than 250 schoolchildren and their mentors from 16 Russian cities and towns. This year, the meeting marked the 60th anniversary of the first manned flight into space. The event featured the Press Park and the Big Game, in which the participants learned hands-on about modern jobs and presented TV reports about one of them to the jury, as well as the award ceremony for winners of the 20th national school media competition and the School Media Marathon 2021.
The events were organized by the Russian Kosygin State University and the NASHpress school news agency with support from Temocenter, Softline, Adobe and the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ.
Taking part in the 20th edition of the contest were 259 school teams from 124 cities and 53 Russian regions.Seventy-four of them received awards.
Although statistically, the number of readers in Russia is decreasing, school press still exists and is even growing. Every year, there are new names in the print media contest. Newspapers, magazines and anthologies that have existed for more than a year are accepted for review. This year, 19 teams out of 39 prize winners in the print media category are newcomers, which speaks to the high level of novice publishers. The oldest outlet of the season, the 132 Percent newspaper from Novosibirsk, is 35 years old.
Among the best publications, experts praised the anthology War as Seen by Witnesses (Moscow); the newspapers Vesti sParty (Bolshoye Isakovo, Kaliningrad Region), 51st Continent (Tver) and ZavtraK (Yekaterinburg); the magazines Shkola Dmitrovsky and Shuvalovets (Moscow); and the newspapers Pravda 18 (Novosibirsk) and Sinyaya Ptitsa (Moscow).
This year, 164 media organizations took part in the all-around editorial teams’ competition, which includes those that write, film, edit, and photograph, and 35 of them received awards. During the season, young journalists published news, reports, and essays, filmed TV spots, recorded interviews, prepared photos, carried out polls and research, and also drew, created music videos, sang, and were on duty around the city. Over the five months of the competition, more than 280 news items, 720 reports, 335 videos and more than 4,300 photos were published on the School Press website.
The list of the winners includes Antirutin (Rostov-on-Don), Shturman (Tomsk), Chetvyortoye Izmereniye (Zarechny), Yuny Gorod (Balashikha), Super100TV (Nizhny Tagil), Peremenka (Chelyabinsk), Eshchyo! (Zheleznogorsk-Ilimsky), Pyatnitsa Trinadtsatoye (Rzhev) and many others. The Shkolnye Novosti TV team from Armavir was the breakthrough of the season: this team first took part in the project in November and immediately excelled, which allowed them to compete at the same level as more experienced contestants.
Viktoria Bunchuk, Social Projects Manager of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, congratulated the winners: “This year, School Press Days have coincided with many memorable dates related to the internet and digital technology. For example, we marked the 48th anniversary of the first mobile telephone call on April 3; Internet Day and Webmaster Day were on April 4; on April 5, the flash drive celebrated its 22nd anniversary; on April 7, the .RU domain turned 27; and April 9 is World Internet of Things Day. The media technology that you widely use now in your studies or job would not exist without these things that were once innovations. It is thanks to them that you can make such creative and up-to-date products. Congratulations to each team on a well-deserved victory. May you have many new creative products!”
The winning teams were awarded certificates and prizes, including those from the Coordination Center: 3D pens, USB keyboards and board games. Students were also able to get a taste of Moscow’s cultural life through tours and performances at its leading theaters.
