Journalist of 15min.lt investigative department / Journalism
Why did you choose to study journalism?
The reason is very simple - I wanted to be a journalist for a long time when I was at school. It was my dream profession, I knew I wanted to work in this field, so studying journalism was one of the natural choices in my life.
What was your year of study? Tell us your most vivid memories from your studies.
I remember my studies as fun and creative. From the friends and colleagues I made to the job opportunities. Journalists have a lot of practice during their studies, a lot of practical assignments, many months of practice in different media outlets. This was very important for me, because it allowed me to start real work in the media during my studies, to enter the media market.
I remember a lot of funny things from my studies. For example, how we used to film reports for TV journalism lectures with tiny cameras, we didn't have many camera stands, we didn't have microphones, but we wanted to make sure that we wouldn't be embarrassed to show our reports in a lecture, so we were creative and we came up with ways to get away with simple household tools. And, of course, we ended up editing everything on the last night before the lectures. These are fun memories that have taught me to be creative and that even without the best technology, sometimes you can get away with it.
How has the knowledge you gained at Vilnius University's Faculty of Communication helped you in your work?
I would say that the most important thing is the understanding of journalistic ethics and certain value standards instilled at the university. This is the basis of journalistic work, the foundation on which everything else is built - skills, abilities, competences, experiences. The profession of journalism requires learning new things every day, and all those new things are also built on the same foundations of values. Therefore, I think it is very important that those foundations are not crooked.
At university, I learned the most important basics - what journalism really is and how it is done. But there was also very specific knowledge that I still use today in my work, such as knowledge of media and media law. This has always been a very interesting area for me and it was at university that I was introduced to the main laws, regulations, code of ethics that apply to journalists. Today, I rely on those laws and legal knowledge both when I ask the authorities for information and when I have to respond to complaints from various individuals about articles and investigations. At least so far, I have not lost a single one of these disputes in a number of years.
What does your working day look like? What skills does your job require?
It is very difficult to answer the question of what a working day looks like. What makes a journalist's job interesting is that each day can look completely different, depending on a number of circumstances. For me, it mostly depends on the stage of the team's investigation: sometimes we sit in the office all day on computers and read hundreds of pages of documents, sometimes we go to all sorts of people with cameras and microphones and interview them, sometimes we write texts all day long, sometimes we meet with secret sources and look over our shoulders to make sure no one sees us. For example, today I spent the whole day in the office writing our upcoming book with my colleague Dovydas Pancerovas, and tomorrow I have to go and observe a meeting of a state institution. So the days are very varied.
As regards skills, I would highlight a few things. First of all, a journalist's job is based on communicating with people, so a journalist should not be afraid of that. Also, a lot of journalism is about writing in one way or another, and even when working in television, a journalist often has to write a text that is read out to the audience, and working for a web portal or any written media naturally requires even more writing skills, which is why they are important. Probably the most important personal quality that I would highlight as essential for this job is responsibility, a sense of responsibility. A journalist is accountable to the public, so his or her job requires a great deal of responsibility, which starts with checking the information so as not to make mistakes, and goes on to choosing the topics, understanding that it is the journalist's duty to inform the public about what is important and what the public has a right to know.
Since I work in investigative journalism, I would add that analytical skills are important, as is the ability to collect, process, verify and systematise large amounts of information and data, the ability to make connections and to create a circle of sources from which the journalist collects information. These are all developable skills.
Who would you recommend a journalism degree programme to?
I can tell you the first thing I wouldn't recommend it to. If you think that people who are going to be journalists in the future are going to choose a journalism degree, then it's probably hardly the type of job for the type of people who want a calm, stable and secure life. A journalist does not work an 8am to 5pm schedule and does not close the door all the way when he leaves the office. A journalist's job requires a great deal of dedication. Journalists usually work hard, without earning a fortune, and live in a constant state of tension. But it is also a kind of mission, and sometimes the greatest reward is to see visible change, to solve the problems the journalist has raised, to know that you have done something important and good.
If the things I have listed above have not scared people away from choosing this profession and this study programme, it can be a starting point for thinking about a programme. But it is really very difficult to say what kind of people should choose this programme. Journalism is very diverse: from niche areas, cultural, entertainment, sports journalism to political, business or investigative journalism. Journalism covers many fields and journalists are very diverse and different people.
I think it is most important that motivated people choose this study programme. Those who really feel that they want to at least give it a try. This field requires a person to learn all the time, to be constantly challenged, and so a person's motivation and willingness to do that seems to me to be a very important, if not the most important, factor.