On Knowledge Day, war correspondent Yevgeny Poddubny told young people what a modern journalist should be like
On Knowledge Day, 1 September, a special Courage Lesson was held at the National Centre RUSSIA. As part of the All-Russian educational campaign "Share Your Knowledge", media-class students and university students from Moscow met with Deputy Director General of VGTRK Yevgeny Poddubny, the first war correspondent to be awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation. The event was organised by the Russian society Znanie with the support of the Ministry of Education of Russia.
The meeting focused on the mission and personal responsibility of journalists in today's world. According to Yevgeny Poddubny, responsibility does not depend on age: journalists need to develop this awareness from their student days.
"The responsibility of journalists has grown significantly in today's world, and it is impossible to work in the profession without recognising this. Any piece of information, whether malicious or simply inaccurate, can have very serious consequences. So today journalists are not simply people who inform their audience. They are also a shield protecting others from destructive and harmful information, from fake news intended to destabilise our society and cause physical, economic and other harm," said Deputy Director General of VGTRK, war correspondent and Hero of the Russian Federation Yevgeny Poddubny.
The school students learned how journalists work amid military conflict and information threats, and what qualities a war correspondent needs. Concluding his remarks on journalistic responsibility, Yevgeny Poddubny urged his future colleagues not to stop at combating fake news, but to go further — to think deeply about events and immerse themselves in a particular subject so that they can understand it at an expert level. According to him, specialising in a particular field gives journalists real confidence, and this approach is what turns a generalist who "knows nothing and knows everything about everything" into a true professional whose opinion people trust.
"If a journalist writes about nuclear physics, for example, they need to understand the subject extremely well, at an expert level. The same applies to medicine, military affairs and culture. I ask you to think about finding an important specialisation for yourselves, so that you become not just journalists, but the voice of the field you cover, treating it with responsibility, love and respect. Because the most successful journalists — both in terms of recognition and recognition of their work — were specialists. That is what enabled them to become defining figures for entire industries. Journalists became so deeply immersed in their subjects that they could debate, look for solutions and help tackle major challenges — in space exploration, defence development and medicine. Soviet international affairs journalists understood foreign policy and international relations no worse than the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. That, to my mind, is the highest level of professional skill, and it is what you should strive for," Yevgeny Poddubny concluded.
The meeting concluded with the speaker answering questions from the audience. The young people asked what helps him return to everyday life after work trips, how to ensure maximum personal safety while seeking out unique stories, what the superpower of a Hero of Russia is, and how not to give up on the way to achieving a dream.
The "Share Your Knowledge" campaign, organised by the Russian society Znanie, traditionally runs from 1 to 30 September. Any educator can become a lecturer. This year, the campaign brings together four projects — Znanie.Security, Znanie.Sport, "Reading Programmes" and the "Ready-Made Lecture Library", which offers a wide range of topics. School students can look forward to lectures, quizzes, work with fiction, open discussions, workshops and other events, including those held as part of the career guidance course "Russia — My Horizons".
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