The multi-ethnic region of Liepāja (the third largest city in Latvia) is home to many minorities. Forty percent of its population speaks Russian. To meet the needs of local bilingual community, the Latvian regional television channel TV Kurzeme and the regional news portal liepajniekiem.lv (published by “Kurzemes Vārds” Ltd) teamed up and created a joint editorial team for creating news content in Russian.
Over a period of three months (October to December 2021), the team produced a total of 30 articles, covering a range of topics important to this bilingual community: access to kindergartens in Liepaja, urban traffic problems, labour market, social security, quality of education, business opportunities, sports, integration of refugees, health care issues, COVID-19 measures, and others. In addition to regular daily news coverage, they also introduced a weekly summary of the most important news (in text and video format) in Russian (Неделя в Лиепае / Sunday in Liepāja).
This is not the first time the two project partners worked together, but the NewsSpectrum grant allowed them to further develop this cooperation and explore new forms of exchange and new models for sharing content, reach wider Russian-speaking audience, and offer those audiences a better understanding of local issues in Liepaja.