Journalists preparing to become the first instructors of BNR's Radio Journalism Academy (BNR)

Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) has launched its Radio Journalism Academy, with support from the Eurovision ACADEMY  and the EBU Partnership Programme. The BNR Academy is now recruiting young journalists for an inaugural course in April.

Frédéric Frantz, Training Business Manager at the Eurovision ACADEMY, is working with BNR to transform some of its best journalists into skilled trainers.

The new instructors are learning to design a comprehensive, hands-on journalism programme that will complement the theoretical training many of the young journalists already have.

Frantz explains the idea behind the project : "Organising a course, with an expert from outside your organization, is easy enough to set up. However, creating a structure within a broadcaster not only makes use of your own experts, it nurtures exchanges between different generations of journalists and allows the organisation to be more autonomous at a lower cost. This new academy will empower BNR, the public it serves and allow it to be more self-sufficient in training."

BNR Director General Radoslav Yankulov greeted participants and expressed his satisfaction with progress made in the first stage of this project.

The next round of training for instructors, held onsite at BNR in late March, will host a lecturer from the School of Journalism in Montpellier (ESJ) and will be attended by EBU Vice-President Claudio Cappon.

The new BNR Academy will start its 'Master Class in Radio Journalism' for young journalists in April 2014.

The Eurovision ACADEMY, backed by the Partnership Programme, supported the creation of a similar academy for Radio Algeria.