Center conducts newspaper design workshop in Lithuania
Twenty-nine journalists, representing 26 regional newspapers, participated in a three-day workshop on newspaper design conducted April 29-May 1 at the School of Journalism at the University of Vilnius in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Sponsors of the workshop were the School of Journalism at the University of Vilnius, the Lithuanian Journalism Center in Vilnius, the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research and the World Association of Newspapers, located in Paris.
Workshop instructors were Fredrika Sundberg, production chief at the Ålandstidningen, in Åland, Finland, and Tony De Feria, assistant managing editor for photography and news art at the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Atlanta, GA, USA.
The Lithuanian journalists represented weekly through daily newspapers published outside the capitol of Vilnius. All attendees had responsibility for design and layout at their newspapers.
Workshop participants learned about design techniques from Sundberg and De Feria and received inidividualized consultation on the design of their newspapers. They also drafted a redesign of their newspapers and received comments from the workshop instructors on the design changes they proposed.
Included in the workshop was a visit to Verslo inios, a Lithuanian business newspaper published in Vilnius that employs modern design and production techniques. The paper is owned by a Swedish newspaper company.
The Lithuanian workshop was the first in that country by the Cox Center and represented the first collaboration with the World Association of Newspapers. WAN was represented at the workshop by Dr. Aralynn McMane, director of educational programmes at WAN.
Prof. Marius Lukosiunas, director of the School of Journalism, University of Vilnius, began the workshop with introductory comments. Prof. Lukosiunas had responsibility for the seminar from its conceptualization more than a year ago. His journalism school is the only such institute in Lithuania.
Ms. Renita Paleckiene, program coordinator for the Lithuanian Journalism Centre, handled day-to-day organizational details for the workshop.
"We were extremely fortunate to be able to work with Prof. Lukosiunas and Ms. Paleckiene, as well as with Dr. McMane, on this workshop," said Prof. Lee B. Becker, director of the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research at the University of Georgia. "We believe the end product was a great success, based on the evaluations provided by the workshop attendees." Dr. Becker represented the Cox Center at the workshop and assisted with program evaluation.
The Cox Center conducted a workshop on political reporting in neighboring Latvia in 1992.
