THE NATIONAL UNION OF
JOURNALISTS OF UKRAINE
The Secretary of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU), Kostiantyn Hryhorenko, the editor-in-chief of the multimedia publication from Izium, spoke about the old and new projects of Obrii Iziumshchyny at the meeting of editors from the front-line and de-occupied territories of Ukraine, which took place in Kyiv.
What are we writing about? An almanac
In a newspaper in the de-occupied and front-line territories, first of all, readers need background information. People need to know where, what, and when: what is open, the telephone numbers of municipal and social services, where you can buy medicine and food, etc. And where else will people get information if there is no radio and television, the Internet is not stable, there is no public transport, and many institutions in a half-ruined city or village do not work?
We continue to maintain the column we use to give information about who was born, who was baptized, and who became a wedding groom. Only now, we have its name changed to Born To The Sound Of Air Alerts. We write a lot about collaborators as this topic is paramount for us. And when we have to write about saying goodbye to our heroes killed at the front, it is very painful.
People are asking for more ads. We made a coupon for a private ad of UAH 30, and our issue began to receive up to ten ads. Now we make a coupon for free ads containing up to 20 words. People willingly give such ads because not everyone has the opportunity to display them on OLX.
Another project that we implemented is the almanac called Izium Half-Year Occupation Chronicles. We collected the chronology of the six-month occupation of Izium, systematic, reliable, objective information, and published it. We received the funds for its release – UAH 10,000 – at the expense of a mini-grant: we wrote the respective application and were supported. I note that donors, as a rule, support such projects and allocate funds for them.
The work was a challenge, but it was worth it. This issue of Obrii Iziumshchyny is in particular demand because even those who lived in occupied Izium often did not know what was literally happening on a parallel street.
Now we want to make the second edition of the almanac, which will include information about how the de-occupied city lived from September to the end of 2022. It was a challenging period that we must not forget.
I think that each newsroom can organize similar mini projects about the occupation or life in the front-line zone. And you can believe that, apart from us journalists, no one will deal with this: neither the government, military administrations, nor any other structures.
About QR codes
We have a QR code in every room of Obrii Iziumshchyny. Previously, QR codes were made only on a special bitlikom service. Now you don’t need bitlikom: just go to Google and write ‘Create a QR code.’ Then it remains only to follow the instructions (for example – add a photo, video, etc.).
How are Obrii Iziumshchyny‘s QR codes used? For example, if we cannot allocate an entire newspaper page for photos from some holiday or some important event, we pack them in a QR code and note: ‘See the photo report here.’
Or: All parents want to see their kids on video, and we put a QR code on the prom video. Such an opportunity was received pretty warmly in Izium.
Recently, we have started to provide QR codes for an additional fee, such as for greetings. For example, a husband wants to congratulate his wife through a printed newspaper, and right away, we ask if he would like to gift her a song for an additional UAH 50. We explained how the whole family and friends could listen to this song through a QR code, so the man agreed. We often receive thanks for the opportunity to congratulate a relative in such a way that is not quite usual for the people of Izium.
As a rule, such links are sent to YouTube, and our visits to this platform have increased many times. But you can connect links to both Facebook and Instagram.
Inter-newsroom experience exchange: it is worth restoring
Inter-newsroom experience exchanges gave a good result in organizing the work of newsrooms before large-scale aggression. I felt this back in 2010 when all the newsroom team completed internships in successful newsrooms in different regions of Ukraine, and after that, we radically changed our work, and above all, we changed the business model.
When asked what I think is the best form of business, I say that a general taxation system is the best for our little local newspaper. We worked with both VAT and a single tax, but the general taxation system turned out to be the most acceptable.
Now the office of the Council of Europe is resuming its work; in the next two years, they will work in Ukraine, including in the direction of the printed press. When asked for suggestions, I said it could be newsroom exchanges, which I think are the most effective.
Our services
Photo editor. It lets you quickly crop a photo, change its size, and create a collage.
Trello. A program that helps to collect all employees, tasks, and tools in one place. We used it for the first time during the pandemic while working remotely. It is especially useful when reading a newspaper remotely. Don’t scare English speakers and subtitles, as Google Translate gives a decent translation. And all the more so that now Google immediately offers you Russian or Ukrainian.
Word Press. We brought this unique service from the United States in 2017. We had to change the site so that we could use American services, and we switched to elementary Word Press. And I will say that this is the best that can be adapted for our conditions today. For instance, this service creates puzzles from images for free. It was on Word Press that we rebranded the site twice.
If your cool IT specialist offers something, do it on Word Press, and you won’t know grief.
Google Docs. As a rule, we store all photos on Google Photos. But Google Photos does not always display them on Internet resources, so the photo must be saved on Google Docs.
A time tracker helps to track the time spent on each segment of work. Therefore, it helps to better organize the work process in the team and to be disciplined.
Online Corrector automatically searches for and corrects mistakes in texts in the Ukrainian language. Download the Online Corrector add-on for Google Docs or Microsoft Word, and you will have automatic correction of errors in texts in the Ukrainian language. Use Online Corrector‘s suggestions for usage, style, grammar, and punctuation to improve the language of your text. With the help of this service, you can check texts for errors after machine translation.
A typographer is more for a designer. The typographer will help you automatically make the text visually look better and unify it: remove double spaces between words, put the same quotation marks, etc.
Plagiarisma, StrikePlagiarism.com checks the text for uniqueness and allows you to screen for plagiarism in materials. But, to tell the truth, we have to fight more, not with plagiarism in our materials, but with the fact that our texts are constantly being stolen from us, and our logos and authors’ names are being erased from photos. I personally have to struggle with this all the time.
Printed products and magnets help to earn
We print calendars, posters with old and new street names (very relevant in our time of renaming), community plans (communities buy them from us, and then we also sell them), we print posters indicating exciting places in the Izium area, where and which animals where mushroom places are located, with photos of football teams, etc. These products are in demand; sometimes, additional copies must be printed, especially in the summer, when Izium residents, who now live in other places, come to the city, and guests come.
One of my favorite print projects is old Izium photos. They made several editions of calendars with old photos and, in order to make the project profitable, placed advertisements on these posters. When we notice that people are clipping the ad, we put it in such a way that it can be easily clipped.
I advise you to either find a sponsor ready to pay for the printing to earn money from the sale or collect advertising in a place below so that it can be clipped.
We have a stable income from these printed products. First, we make money when we print the poster because the printing is paid for by the advertisers. It happened that hidden advertising was posted; for example, photos of a well-known hotel and restaurant complex were posted (unfortunately, it was entirely destroyed by the occupiers). Then we sell the poster and have the revenue from the sale.
In addition, such calendars and posters advertise Obrii Iziumshchyny. Each of them has our logo, and no matter which office you walk into, there are posters around that remind you of our newspaper.
Olha Voitsekhivska, Journalist of Ukraine
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