Undergraduate Linguist Marianna Spring Becomes News Reporter for The Moscow Times

NEWS |

2nd year undergraduate French and Beginners’ Russian student Marianna Spring has achieved journalistic success during her Year Abroad, regularly producing news stories for The Moscow Times.

Marianna is currently enrolled on a languages course for Ab Initio Russian students at a university in Yaroslavl’, a city 250km northeast of Moscow, where she lives with a host family.

Having previously written for the Cherwell, one of Oxford’s largest student publications, Marianna decided to build on her active interest in journalism by contacting the Editor of The Moscow Times. She subsequently secured a position as a reporter, writing regular news articles, some of which are derived from her own independent research.

‘So far, it has been a wonderful and incredibly interesting opportunity for a wannabe news journalist’, Marianna commented in correspondence with Pembroke. ‘For me, news stories reveal the essence of the issues facing a particular society, as well as their priorities and attitude.’

This month, Marianna has had articles published on such wide-ranging topics as the closure of the Russia-Norway border, a toddler casualty, protests regarding Leonardo DiCaprio, and a rescue mission of 40 fishermen from a drifting ice floe.

Immersing herself in the world of Russian journalism is, for Marianna, an alternative way of exploring the country’s culture: ‘My time at The Moscow Times is helping me to better understand those interests and values so central to Russia and its identity, at a time when it is under much scrutiny from both the West and East. It’s also giving me insight into how the press works here, in particular how it covers those more controversial news stories.’

After returning from Russia in April 2016, Marianna will be completing an internship as a news reporter at ‘The Local’ in Paris, developing her journalistic skills in a new environment while enhancing her French language skills.