At the working meeting, which was attended by twenty participants from several media, the outlines of the strategic plan were set through a debate, which accepted the priorities and goals of this section for the following period.
Mladen Chadikovski, President of AJM, Sashka Cvetkovska, Coordinator of the initiative for establishing a Section of Young Journalists at AJM, addressed the participants.
One of the conclusions is that the members of the section will strive to improve the socio-economic status of young journalists in the newsrooms, but at the same time will work on upgrading the skills for advanced reporting and compliance with standards in journalism and networking among newsrooms.
Through the activities set out in the draft strategic plan of the section, the members are expected to affirm journalism as an attractive profession, because today there is less and less interest in it and many newsrooms face a serious problem to find journalists. One of the conclusions from the meeting was that the active work of this section will contribute to building greater solidarity in the journalistic profession and further upgrade the knowledge of professionals in the sector. In addition to popularization, through capacity building, the section in the future will enable young journalists not only to get the opportunity to hear experiences from other media and a historical overview of how things have changed but also about professional standards and red lines in the profession. Among other things, at the meeting were presented facts about the increasing number of attacks on journalists and media workers and threats they received, especially online, for which AJM took a series of activities and alerted regional institutions.
Such information and events will be used for the preparation of a Protocol for the safety of journalists which will be prepared in cooperation between AJM and the Ministry of Interior (MOI) in 2022. The meeting was held on April 13, 04, 2022 at the premises of KOTUR in Skopje. The section of young journalists remains an open forum that can be joined by any young professional from all media in Skopje and other cities in Macedonia.