During the course week the journalists from north of Norway, Murmansk region and Petrozavodsk have a possibility to visit media houses in northern Finland and get to know Finnish practices in journalism.

”Our aim is to exchange best practices and promote professional networks so that the journalists could have better international contacts. It is important to get to know colleagues who work in neighboring countries”, says Markku Heikkilä, Head of Science Communications in the Arctic Centre and Manager of the Barents Mediasphere project.

The visiting journalists meet with many experts, politicians and entrepreneurs. In Oulu, they will be briefed about the changing times in the local ICT business and how new companies and investments are attracted to come to the city. In Rovaniemi, the journalists learn about tourism business in Lapland. During the week other themes include Finnish school system, health care and mining. The aim is that by deepening their knowledge about Finland, journalists can better understand the wider developments in the Barents region.

A similar course was organized in April 2013 in Murmansk region for Finnish and Norwegian journalists. The Barents Mediasphere project will also invite media professionals to Rovaniemi in October 2014 to the second meeting of editors-in-chief from the Barents region.

Partners in the project besides the Arctic Centre are Murmansk TV (GTRK Murman) and the news portal Barents Observer (Norwegian Barents Secretariat, Kirkenes). The journalists network Barents Press International is cooperating with the project.

Barents Mediasphere is financed by the Kolarctic ENPI CBC program.

www.barentsmediasphere.org
www.kolarcticenpi.info


More information:

Markku Heikkilä
Manager of the project
Tel. +358 (0)40 484 4300+358 (0)40 484 4300
markku.heikkila (at) ulapland.fi

Virpi Komulainen
Project Coordinator
Tel. +358 (0)40 484 4154+358 (0)40 484 4154
virpi.komulainen (at) ulapland.fi


ULapland / Arctic Centre