Written by David Brewer

Journalists taking part in a three-day converged newsroom training course in the Urals have been thrown into the thick of one of the biggest health scares to hit the area for years. 16 print, broadcast and online journalists were taking part in the course in the town of Pervouralsk when news came through that nine teenagers from a local ice hockey team had been admitted to hospital after displaying the symptoms of swine flu.

The teenagers had just returned from playing in an international tournament in the Siberian town of Kemerovo, 1,800 km to the east.

News of the suspected outbreak came through as the journalists were beginning day three of their course, organised by the Russian Independent print media programme of the New Eurasia Foundation and the Foundation for Independent Radio (FNR).

They were gathered in the newsroom of the host newspaper, the independent Gorodskiye Vesti, talking through a number of story ideas when the training switched from the theoretical to the practical.

Exclusive material

Olga Vertlyugova, the managing editor of Gorodskiye Vesti was running the news meeting at the time.

"It was an ideal situation where we found ourselves thrown into covering an important issue and having a large collective of professionals available to cover every angle," she said.

Many of the participants are used to working in small newsrooms staffed by a handful of journalists. The breaking news story meant that they were able to experience working in a larger, multimedia team.

The video (below) shows the team working as if in a converged newsroom controlled by a central superdesk distributing content to all platforms.

Within hours those on the course had returned with exclusive footage from the hosptial having spoken to medical staff, parents and their children. The story made a front page multimedia exclusive for Gorodskiye Vesti (see below).

The front page exclusive on Gorodskiye Vesti's website

Testing training in a breaking news environment

Maria Eismont, the director of the Russian independent media programme said it was good to see the group members putting the training into practice so soon into the course.

"This proved to those taking part that the theory they had been show will work, not only in the West, but in their everyday work here in the Russian Urals," she said.

Ensuring all angles are covered

Charles Maynes, programme officer said the participants had been carefully selected so that the course had skilled professionals from print, online and broadcast.

"By mixing the teams meant that the journalists were exposed to the pressures and challenges their colleagues face day to day.

"For many it was an eye-opener, because in the past, the worlds of radio and print haven’t overlapped much," he said.

The rules set for the assignment were that there must be no duplication of effort or resources, that each version of the story added value, that all cross-promoted the other in a fully converged news offering, and that the newsgathering, news production and news delivery had to be on free, open-source platforms.

Note: The founder and editor of Media Helping Media, David Brewer, was running the course.