The mobile editorial will be in a shelter in the street corner of Rīgas and Mihoelsa Street every day from 10 to 17. There will always be one journalist from Re:Baltica and one from Chayka.lv.
“The idea came when I saw the following example from Macedonia at the international investigative journalism conference, where our colleagues had opened mobile editorials in three cities in one year, calling on citizens to come to talk and help fight corruption in the local governments concerned,” said Sanita Jemberga, editor of Re:Baltica, in a statement to the media.
“When the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, for obvious reasons, discussions about the mood in Daugavpils, about which everyone has an opinion but little knowledge, resumed. Therefore, the editorial plan is not to talk about Daugavpils, but to Daugavpils, recording the reactions and the real situation one and a half years after the beginning of the war.”
The mobile editorial has three goals. The first is to give people the opportunity to negotiate freely with journalists so that they can see how journalists work and ask questions of interest, as well as pitch ideas to investigate..
In parallel, Re: Baltica in Daugavpils will work on two studies: how prepared for the accelerated transition to teaching in Latvian are Daugavpils minority schools, and will study the situation and mood around the Latvian-language exam for Russian citizens.
The third objective is to support the local independent media Chayka.lv, which is seeking to provide unbiased information about what is happening in the city and Latvia.
“As Chayka.lv is published in Russian, it does not receive state aid. We also know how much aggression they get about their content which is not consistent with Russian or local government propaganda. Therefore, when we opened the editorial together, we wanted to say that we respect their work very much and that it is valuable,” Jemberga said.
“I think this experience will be useful for our readers as well. “Chayka” doesn't have its own office, so we don't have the opportunities to meet regularly with our readers in person - basically we do it online. The work of journalists in Daugavpils center will allow this to be corrected for a week. The residents of Daugavpils can come to the editorial and tell us about their problems which cannot be solved without the involvement of journalists. And we will do what we can to help,” said Inna Plavoka, editor-in-chief of Chayka.lv.
