Clergy Meets Trainees of School of Interethnic Journalism at ASU

Over the three past months, students of Astrakhan State University have been studying specifics of work in a multicultural and multiconfessional environment. Clergy representatives talked to them on May 29.

Ms. Dinara Mezhitova, Chief of the Astrakhan Office of the Guild of Interethnic Journalism, introduced the two guests. The Guild specializes in training journalists for further work in a multicultural environment. Similar schools arranged by this institution operate in a number of Russian cities.

Talking with our students, Rauf khazrat Dzhantasov, Chairman of the Astrakhan Regional Spiritual Administration of Muslims, remarked that prevention of interethnic and interreligious extremism is of great importance nowadays. Reps of Muslim organizations cooperate actively with schools and universities in this field.

The guest told about educational activities that Muslim religious organizations perform. He pointed out that religious figures aim not to propagandize their religions, but tackle interreligious tasks. Over the past several years, the social situation has been quite complicated. Terrorist organizations, using pseudoreligious postulates as a cover, awoke distrust and suspiciousness in people’s conscience. For some people, the notions “religion” and “extremism” merged. There is a fault of some incompetent or indifferent media representatives, who misinterpret facts with a careless word or phrase. Rauf khazrat reminded of a great responsibility that a journalist ought to assume, especially when concerning religious or ethnic issues in their media materials. “A word can unite people; yet, if it’s misused, it can sow seeds of discord”, he said.

In his turn, Reverend Maksim Burdin of the Russian Orthodox Church emphasized importance of sites to publish Christian materials there. Now the media sphere is developing fast, and the clergy uses various methods to bring interesting and useful information to the public attention. There is a place for research papers related to Christianity (historic backgrounds, discussions, etc.) on web sites and in social networks. The Church is ready to bring fresh ideas to the media space. In particular, Rev. Burdin mentioned projects by the photo service of the Moscow Patriarchy.

The priest determined several essential rules for a journalist, especially if that journalist is preparing media materials in interethnic and interreligious themes:

• identify the goals of your materials;
• determine the style of your paper and how it should present the facts;
• once your article has been written, read it carefully; should you have any opportunity, give it to your respondent to read and verify; be always ready to clarify any ambiguous information;
• keep an eye on what effect your publication has given; know the public feedback.

“A journalist ought to be professional, objective, and honest”, Rev. Burdin summed up, “Especially if that’s a journalist from Astrakhan, as our region is populated by people of various ethnic and religious communities; a media person is responsible for an unbiased and respectful coverage of interethnic issues”.