Associate Professor of the Department of Journalism and Philology of the Faculty of FPSC Sumy State University Alla FEDORINA knows the clear answer to this question, because she is the coordinator from the Sumy region of the project “Mentoring course of institutional development of local media of Zhytomyr, Sumy and Chernihiv regions “Media of new communities”. Its final stage took place the other day in Zhytomer.

Among the issues discussed are the formation of the editorial policy of mass media, the promotion of one’s publication, and the earning of funds for local media. Accordingly, they were looking for answers to the questions of what fundraising, crowdfunding and what is the essence of mass media grant activity.

As early as last fall, work on the project began in the three designated areas. The war did not allow to meet the deadlines, but did not manage to damage the idea. So, in August, the organizers gathered a hackathon to hold the final event, to complete the unfinished business due to the war and to sum up the results. There was also a team from Sumy Oblast, whose coordinator was Alla Fedorina.

Wait, what is a hakanon? - someone will ask. This is a meeting place for specialists, where they can get to know each other, exchange knowledge and ideas, find a solution to a specific problem or come up with/discuss a joint project - for a certain limited time.

So: acquaintance, exchange, learning. The first one was easier: many participants met earlier, but the exchange of experience and training lasted for two days - journalists need to learn constantly! The topics “Fundamentals of developing and implementing the editorial policy of a local edition”, “Cooperation of local media with NGOs and conducting advocacy campaigns”, “Crowdfunding: how to attract money with the help of collective financing”, “Marketing in social networks for local mass media2 were discussed.

The third day of the hackathon was purely practical: the participants who won the mini-project competition within the general framework and received sub-grants presented their achievements. In Sumy Oblast, mini-projects will be implemented by three newsrooms: “Bilopilshchyna”, “Our region” (Lypova Dolyna) and “Yampil internet television”.