Timisoara, Romania, 02 - 06 April, 2002

Timisoara: the Opera houseTimisoara, western Romania, was the venue chosen for The Thomson Foundation's first CIRCOM seminar for middle managers. Sixteen participants from a dozen countries spent a busy week in the company of Thomson Foundation Director, Gareth Price, with Vanda Condurache, Phil Davies and Roel Dijkhuis (Chairman of CIRCOM Training Board of Governors) contributing sessions on a wide range of management topics.

But one of the most valuable elements, it seemed to many, was the realisation that public service broadcasters across Europe work under such different social, political and economic conditions. The exchange of professional experience highlighted the difficulties everyone faces in their daily work. At the time of the seminar, the staff and managers of Moldova TV and Radio were on strike, in direct confrontation with their government. Timisoara: the CathedralA Romanian regional producer explained how she made her programmes with hardly any available finance, but still maintaining to preserve programme quality. Bulgarian TV is still slowly moving towards becoming a public service proper, while the second channel of Georgian TV is undergoing a complete privatisation and restructuring, with the intention of becoming totally self-supporting by the end of this year. Some independent stations in Serbia, on the other hand, are at the forefront of digital broadcasting technology, as a direct consequence of their most recent social history.

All the sessions were informal and open to discussion. Topics included: personnel management, finance, programme quality and production, scheduling, communication skills, and the general management of regional stations. Participation throughout the week was committed, challenging, and of great benefit to us all. And, of course, discussion went on, day and night!

Timisoara: the CathedralThe organisation of the seminar, co-ordinated by TVR Bucharest, and with detailed liaison with their colleagues at TVR Timisoara, was impeccable. We were all efficiently looked after from morning till evening. The seminar facilities and hotel were excellent; and as a group, we enjoyed several local visits - a tram ride and walk through the old city, to the open house of an internationally acclaimed sculptor, and of course, to some of the great range of local restaurants.

In conclusion, this was, we hope, a successful and practical middle management seminar, intended to stimulate the participating managers into improving their organisation immediately on their return to work. If every participant can bring about even one change or improvement at their stations, the week spent in Timisaoara will have been worthwhile.

Opening session of the middle management seminar in Timisoara.	The management group take a short break from discussion at the Timisoara seminar.
Roel Dijkhuis, CIRCOM training director, describes his open approach to the management of RTV Noord.	(Left to right): Vanda Condurache (TVR Iasi), Phil Davies and Gareth Price (Thomson Foundation) and Brindusa Armanca (TVR Timisoara) enjoy reaction from the managers
Statue and public building in the city centre.	Some of the hundreds of works that fill Peter Jecza's house.
Time for Hrvoje Habekovic (Croatia) and Levan Kubaneishvili (Georgia) to relax in the sculptor's garden.	Sculpture everywhere you look!.
Evening at one of Timisoara's fine restaurants	The Orthodox Cathedral, symbol of the Romanian Revolution of 1989.
Hrvoje (Croatia), Levan (Georgia) and Joseph (Malta) see the joke...	...but Stefan (Slovakia) and Roel (Netherlands) don't seem too sure!

CIRCOM REGIONAL in conjunction with Council of Europe and The Thomson Foundation with financial support from The Government of Luxembourg

REPORT ON TELEVISION JOURNALISM WORKSHOP PROGRAMME

Kosice, Slovakia, May 20th - 31st 2002

KOSICE TRAINING

In May we moved onto Kosice and nine days of television journalism training immediately before the CIRCOM Conference.

The training was conducted at the Centrum Hotel with a total of twenty-five participants from ten member countries, six trainers, five technicians and a workshop administrator. Finance was provided by Circom Regional member stations, the Council of Europe Stability Pact Fund supported by the government of Luxembourg, the Council of Europe Human Rights Media Division and the Thomson Foundation.

There would have been more participants but for five cancellations immediately prior to the course. Budget restrictions also limited the numbers. To balance this point, however, the trainers felt that the course was able to provide more effective and relevant training to the smaller number of participants.

THE TRAINERS

The trainers were Ian Masters, Controller Broadcasting Thomson Foundation; Hans Jesson, ARD Berlin; Didier Desormeaux, France 3; David Nelson, BBC Midlands; Karol Cioma, Project Manager, Thomson Foundation. The trainers welcomed a first appearance of Laurence Houot who was kindly released by France 3. Course administration was provided by Kathy Nelson.

The technicians were Gerard Le Couedic, France 3; Ivan Ujhazi, RTL Hungary; Roger Mulliner, UK; Malcolm Owen, BBC Wales; Julian Minkov, Bulgaria.

THE CONTENT

The training was designed to appeal to television journalists who wished to upgrade their reporting skills. In the view of the organisers there are problems in some areas of European journalism. Those areas centre on packaging, "thinking in pictures", writing for television, presentation, interviewing, pieces to camera (standuppers), ethics, working as a team, news selection, multi skilling, use of graphics and planning. The course was designed to cover these areas.

THE METHOD

The method of training concentrated largely on "hands on " practical exercises, workshops, discussion groups and lectures. Other than the first day all remaining eight days included major hypothetical and real story telling operations. The main group of twenty five participants was split into five teams of five journalists thus providing maximum contact with each person. This was the first time at the main annual training workshop that DV cameras and non linear editing equipment had been used. A multi skilled technician was assigned to each of the five groups.

Largely the technical operation worked smoothly but some lack of operational experience with this new equipment caused occasional delays - which was not entirely unexpected. All participants were excited about the DV equipment and saw its future potential on their own stations.

The latter stages of the course saw the participants bristling with ideas for real stories. The five teams produced something in the region of forty ideas which led to each group producing two packages. These packages will be seen during the main conference.

Departing from the presentational style of previous years the trainers decided that it was more important to concentrate on good package production. Story telling using good pictures became the theme of the course. Presentation, however, was covered in smaller groups for those who found it relevant to their working practices.

RESULTS

The results of the course were pleasing to both participants and trainers.

Ten programme items were produced ranging from a newsy issue about supermarket and Sunday shop trading - to a splendid account of the history of the Jewish minority of Kosice - to a day in the life of a street singer.

As mentioned earlier the items were not strung together in programme format but as a live presentation compared by one of the trainees. Given little rehearsal time the items were adequately presented although next year I would look for a more "show business" style. There was a hundred percent turn out of participants and trainers but it was hugely disappointing to members of the course that only a handful of delegates bothered to attend the showing.

No sooner had the scheduled items been prepared than trainees were back hard at work producing news items for the final day of the conference. This certainly pressurised the participants. Sadly the items were not shown to the delegates owing to an incompatibility of digital technology at the conference centre.

Whilst the main training sessions were completed on the Tuesday of the final week all five trainers held special "surgeries" for participants with particular skills needs. These surgeries continued until late on the final Friday afternoon.

TECHNOLOGY

There were problems with the editing technology at some stages of the course which forced many editing sessions late in to the night. The problems centred largely on inexplicable memory loss of content loading and probably on lack of experience of operation of some editors. The future, however, appears to be set on exactly the kind of technology we were using. The learning curve is steep and much was learned by course operators and participants.

FEEDBACK

Feedback forms were issued to all twenty-five participants. The course scored agreeable points with almost every person grateful that they were given the opportunity to take part. Expressed in percentage terms the results were:
1.     How well did you understand the course objectives     94.2
2.     Did the course meet your expectations     90
3.     Did the trainers understand your problems     82.5
4.     Satisfaction of course content     89
5.     Trainer coverage of course content     83
6.     Adequacy of interpretation     85
7.     Course duration (most participants wanted longer)     56.4
8.     Balance of theory and practical work     70
9.     Satisfaction with course technology     62.5

Both items 8 and 9 would have been higher if we had experienced fewer technical delays.

I was delighted with the standard of all trainers and hope to gather the same team for 2003. Next year I will try to persuade the trainers to give more time to individual group work. Trying to teach best practice skills to a large group of twenty-five people is not ideal. We must, however, be careful not to do the work FOR the trainees - always a danger when working in smaller groups.

I think we will also seek to give the participants an extra day or two of core skills training. That, after all, is what they come for.

Ian Masters. June 2002.

May 19th to 1st June 2002

KOSICE FIRST FOR DIGITAL TRAINING

REPORT ON TELEVISION JOURNALISM WORKSHOP PROGRAMME by Ian Masters

The 12th Circom Regional television journalism training workshop in Kosice was a first for digital production methods. This year's workshop operated solely on DVCam format. Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe providing PD250 and PD150 cameras with Avid Technology providing Avid Xpress DV software for post-production facilities. The software was loaded into Dell laptops provided by Karol Cioma the Training Project Manager who is convinced that this way of working will be commonplace in the near future.

"Consider the size first of all, small cameras, a computer laptop for editing, a microphone and some ancillary equipment and you have a full production facility. At Kosice we had five of these units available to us which was perfect for our training needs. Make no mistake these are early days in newsgathering in this way, and it will take newsrooms quite a while toi adapt to non-linear editing being used this way, because at the moment it is slower that conventional Betacam SP editing. However, the software provides greater flexibility and I'm sure that this type of equipment will soon be seen in newsrooms throughout Europe. It's cheap, it's flexible and it's good quality despite what you hear from the "old hands" in the television industry.

The new equipment proved such a success that delegates couldn't wait to get their hands on it. They quickly realised what it was like to be behind the camera and they also learnt a few tricks of the trade in the editing process. Karol Cioma says "There are fears that the arrival of smaller formats will mean less jobs for technicians…not true. It means more original output for the television stations and the professional technicians will spend more time on the prestigious, big budget programmes."

During the workshop Circom training delegates sat in on the presentations of Michael Rosenblum an advocate of the single operator video journalist. Rosenblum has been successfully preaching this method of working for several years in the United States and more recently in Europe. He may have found it a little frustrating therefore to find himself in a situation where he was preaching to the converted. Circom training has struck a first once again and maintains it's position as the leading regional television trainer in Europe.

Gerard Le Couedic of France 3 with Avid DV laptop	Fiona Walker, BBC Scotland and Katarzyna Dziedzik TVP Bialystok editing on Avid
Malcolm Owen, BBC Wales with Sony PD250 DVCam camera
<< Close up Avid editing software >>

Kosice Hosts the12th Circom Regional Journalism Training Workshop

This was the first time the Circom Regional training was co-ordinated by the Thomson Foundation. Gareth Price, the Training Co-ordinator was quick to recognise the reputation and tradition of previous Circom training workshops. "Thomson Foundation and the Circom Regional board decided early on that the style and content of the workshops would basically remain the same, only minor changes would take place only if there was an improvement to the course."
And so it proved, 25 young journalists from 10 different countries across Europe attended the workshop. They were joined by a team of trainers and technicians from a further 6 countries. Circom Regional member stations, the Council of Europe and the Government of Luxembourg through the Stability Pact fund, financed the whole event. Trainers and technicians services were provided free of charge by the Thomson Foundation, France 3, ARD Berlin, BBC Midlands and BBC Wales.

Ian Masters, Controller of Broadcasting at the Thomson Foundation, led the course. "The main purpose of the training was to improve young journalist's television news reporting. Not only by improving their journalism, writing and presentational skills, but also by helping them to think more in telling the story through pictures. After all television reporting depends on interesting pictures and natural sound to re-create the atmosphere of the story or the event to our audience."

The main course ran for 8 days during which 25 sessions of theoretical and practical exercises took place. The delegates used over 400 hours of videotape as they produced 10 news packages in 2 days. They did this using DVCam cameras supplied by Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe and editing software supplied by Avid Technology. But it didn't end there. The young journalists the got to work on reporting on the Circom Regional annual conference. They produced 6 reports over the three day period.

Hans Jessen of ARD, Berlin believes Circom Training has entered a new era. "The annual training event has been a remarkable event for the past 9 years and it goes from strength to strength. If you don't believe me then ask some of the 400 journalists that have attended the workshops what they think of the unique work we do. It's particularly rewarding this year that we were joined by a young journalist trainer from France 3, Laurence Houot, who contributed so much to the course and is likely to do so for many years to come."

Karol Cioma was the Project Manager on the course and is delighted that most things went smoothly. "The only problems we had were lost suitcases and editing in cramped bedrooms, but like all other workshops, the job had to be done and the team along with the delegates made sure they completed their course work despite everything. I hope they learned as much as I did. It was a great experience".

12th Circom Regional Journalism Training Workshop
Kosice, Slovakia
May 19th to 1st June 2002

Inaugural Thomson Foundation middle management seminar
Timisoara, Romania
2nd - 6th April 2002

South-East Europe Television Journalism Workshop and The CIRCOM Seminar
Budva, Montenegro, March 17th and 24th 2002

Training Hand-over Completed

"CIRCOM Regional's decision to award the training co-ordination to the Thomson Foundation finally came into being when Rick Thompson, the out-going Training Co-ordinator officially "handed over" the administration and tasks to the Thomson team at their headquarters in Cardiff, Wales. The meeting was attended by Rick, Roel Dijkhuis on behalf of CR and by Gareth Price, Ian Masters and Karol Cioma of the Thomson Foundation.

Gareth Price, who will be officially known as the CIRCOM Regional Training Coordinator is clearly delighted with the role that the Thomson Foundation will perform over the next three years. "We in the Thomson Foundation are looking forward to the continuing success and development of CIRCOM Regional Training. Over the past four years Rick Thomson and his team have established the leading journalist training scheme in Europe, and we now have three years to build upon that success. We are excited about what the partnership between CIRCOM Regional and the Thomson Foundation and are looking forward to providing training services for all members of CIRCOM Regional."

Ian Masters, the Director of Broadcasting at the Thomson Foundation with be CIRCOM Regional's Training Supervisor. Ian, an old friend of CIRCOM's, helped organise and participate in training in Iasi and Birmingham. He will be coordinating the style and content of the training and will be building on the network of trainers available to CIRCOM.

Karol Cioma, will be the Project Manager for the training and will be working closely with Gareth, Ian and the CIRCOM Training board to organise the course and facilities. Karol has been an active member of CIRCOM Training for the past 10 years working as the Technical Director on most of the CIRCOM Training courses. His knowledge and experience of CIRCOM Training will be an asset to CIRCOM and the Thomson Foundation.

Courses intended for 2002 include South East Europe journalist training workshop, the annual conference journalist training workshop in Kosice and the News Editors Seminar in Strasbourg. The Thomson Foundation will be contacting all the national coordinators in the near future with further details and content of the training."