4th - 17th May 2009
Groningen, Netherlands

Young Journalists gather in Groningen

This was the 18th time that Circom had gathered a group of young journalists together for training in TV journalism skills. The Groningen Group, as they came to be known, represented 10 countries from 14 Circom member stations. 

Roel Dijkhuis, Circom’s Vice-President and Conference organiser played his part in making a success of this year’s training.  He not only twisted Sony’s arm to provide brand new cameras for the training, but also managed to get 2 cars for the trainees to use during their filming exercises.  The Sony XDCam Ex3, the latest solid-state camera with detachable lens is ideal for the professional camera operator and video journalist alike.   The real benefit being the instant access to media when transferred to the editing software.

The stories covered by the Groningen group included the problems the Catholic Church are having in finding priests, students living in adapted sea-container accommodation, the ratio of home births in Holland and Poland and the comparative approach to sign language in Holland and Romania.

Karol Cioma, Circom’s training Project Manager says “This year’s training was a huge success because of three things, 1: the professionalism of the trainers and technicians, 2: the hard work of the students and 3: the support of Roel and Sony.  There was no doubt that the stories made, in terms of content and technical quality, were as good as anything we have produced during Cirocm training sessions.”

This year Michael Delahaye, the course leader for Circom was joined fellow trainers and technicians Professor Didier Desormeaux from Universite France Television, Gail Morris Jones, News Editor BBC Wales, Darko Flajpan from HRT Croatia, Mark Banes also from BBC Wales and Majbrit Bach from TV Mitdvest Denmark.  Thanks and congratulations must go to all of them and their companies for making this Circom training a big success. Feelings echoed by the very special Groningen Group.