Ro
En
Рy
‘When readers are interested in what you are writing, then advertisers are interested too in sponsoring your business’, Ilya Krasilshchik, one of the founders of the portal, explained during a meeting organized by the Independent Journalism Center on Thursday, 20 September.
‘You cannot make a product starting only from the idea that you have to sell it. This principle works poorly. Ideally, one should create products that would permanently awaken the interest of its readership. During the four years of activity, the journalistic materials Meduza team has produced helped us to reach people who have never shown interest in the media. In this way, we also attracted the attention of the advertisers. However, those who sponsor our shows or podcasts have never influenced the content of the latter’, Ilya Krasilshchik claims.
Asked if Meduza publishes materials that belong to external authors, Ilya Krasilshchik gave us a strong ‘No’ answer. ‘We don’t pretend that they are not professionals. It’s simply the idea that they don’t know how to discuss with our audience. We have our own approaches and we know exactly how to get the attention of audience we have built in four years. It took us some time to reach such a performance, that’s why we don’t want to lose our readers due to some materials written by somebody else’, he said.
During the discussion, Ilya Krasilshchik also referred to other aspects – how does a ‘native advertising’ work, what are the elements that characterize the media market in Russia and the world in general, or how to identify new material writing approaches to keep media consumer’s interest.
Meduza.io, located in Latvia’s capital, Riga, was created in 2014, initially having a team of 8-9 people. In 2018, the editorial office has over 80 journalists and succeeds in attracting millions of unique visitors.
‘Meduza.io experience, which has grown from a few people to a profitable media institution, should motivate us too. There are many things we can take from them. I liked the concept of ‘native advertising’ used by Meduza journalists and which brings money. I think it is a segment that can be developed in the Republic of Moldova’, the journalist Cristina Straton from TV8 channel said.
The event is part of a series of meetings between journalists and IT developers, organized by the Independent Journalism Center, as part of the ‘Media Enabling Democracy, Inclusion and Accountability in Moldova (MEDIA-M)’ project, funded by USAID and implemented by Internews. Their purpose is to facilitate the interaction between media representatives and media consumers through innovations.
