In Mariupol, feeling like celebrities

Selma, Yulia and I took a night train to Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, to conduct workshops for journalism students at Mariupol State University for the Humanities. The university lavished us with such attention that we felt like celebrities. At times, I wondered whether they had confused us with some visiting dignitaries.

We happened to arrive on the 60th birthday of Bogdan Vasilovich, dean of the university's College of Philology (which is what they call liberal arts here). Bogdan is a real Renaissance man -- a poet, a composer and, from all indications, a great guy. So the school organized a concert and party for him. The concert, above, featured various singing groups -- with Bogdan's poems set to music. Faculty members and other people paraded up to the stage and gave Bogdan gifts: a computer, a video camera, enough flowers to stock a florist shop ...

The university officials asked if we wanted to join the party on stage. We demurred, but they arranged spectacular seats in the middle of the concert hall. And after the concert, we were included at a fourchette -- a banquet -- in Bogdan's honor. The table featured caviar, cognac, vodka, all sorts of wonderful dishes. And people gave toast after toast to Bogdan. This time, we had no choice but to join in. (Selma suggested that we sign "Happy Birthday," but in the end, I gave a fairly traditional -- albeit short -- toast.)



The next day (Tuesday), I conducted a workshop on computer-assisted reporting -- advanced tips for searching the Internet and an introduction to spreadsheets and data analysis. After that, we had a meeting with the rector, Kostantin Balabanov (below, with an assistant administrator, Svitlana, who orchestrated our visit, which was "very good, indeed!"):



Then Kostantin and Svitlana held a press conference for us with the local media -- and with students -- asking questions: about the press in Ukraine, the press in the United States ... and about the "certificates of completion" that I promised to give the students who attended our workshop. ("What can we do with the certificates?" a student asked. I answered: "If you have your certificate and 5 grivni, you'll be able to buy a cup of coffee." This joke tends to work better in English.)



The press conference was on Mariupol television that evening and the next morning. Also on the TV news were clips of the Bogdan's birthday bash.

On Wednesday, Selma and I did a workshop on civic journalism. We used the exercise I described earlier -- a skit that compares old-school and new-school journalistic writing. I played the reporter who wrote a flowery story about city budget season; Selma was the curmudgeonly editor who told me to (re)write the article for the readers, not for my ego.

Somewhat as I had feared, about half of the students preferred the "to everything there is a season"-approach to the budget story. Selma and I resisted saying: Wrong answer! But we made a case that readers are better served by the civic journalism style. And at the end of the workshop, we gathered for a group photo: