Back to news

Donetsk Institute of Information Conducts Online School of Media Quality

January 12-14 – The Donetsk Institute of Information (DII) organized a series of webinars within its third Online School of Media Quality for newsrooms-members of its network for inter-regional collaboration.

30 journalists and editors from Mariupol, Luhansk and Donetsk (both relocated to Kyiv), Odesa, Kryvy Rih, Kharkiv, Sumy, Kherson, Lviv, Uzhgorod, and Lutsk improved their skills in content production in a documentary storytelling format, development of regional media’s YouTube channels, social media management and work with social media platforms, and storytelling for long-reads.

 During three days, journalists and editors consulted media experts on the issues of specific concern particularly for their regional media: YouTube marketing strategies for editorial teams from a specialist in YouTube channel development Kyrylo Yevseyev, social media management from Olena Dub, and creating long-reads from Marichka Paplauskaite (reporter and editor).

Each participant of the third Online School of Media Quality had a chance to discuss their insights about using new tools and shared their successes.

“A webinar on developing YouTube channel was like a few months’ research distilled into a two-hour lecture. We received relevant tips, pinpointing YouTube channel growth problems for local media. We saw our YouTube channel’s biggest shortcomings through the expert’s eyes and got detailed guidance for improving our platform. It was also useful to hear solutions and ideas for other editorial teams, because regional media are struggling with similar issues,” said Dmytro Bahnenko, a journalist with the Vhoru media, DII’s network member from Kherson.

“Now, after the experts had examined our social media accounts and said what specifically could be improved, it is much easier for us to build a social media marketing strategy. For our editorial office, the value of these webinars is in specific information and examples that we actually heard from the experts,” said Nadiya Korshikova, a manager of Dyvys.Info, media from Lviv.

“I found Olena Dub’s webinar quite beneficial. We will act on her recommendation to start TikTok account, as the platform is worth publishing our content on,” says Andriy Vlasenko, a journalist of Expert-KR, an information agency from Kryvy Rih.

DII provides mentorship to journalists from 12 newsrooms from different regions of Ukraine, including in the East and South, with opportunities to further improve their professional skills, collaborate in content production and information exchange.


Donetsk Institute of Information will organize the next session of Online School of Media Quality in April 2021.


Watch about DII’s School of Media Quality 2019