The AEGEEan recently announced the selection of two new members to the Editors team; Erika Bettin and Cosmina Bisboaca. But why did they decide to dedicate even more time to AEGEE’s official online magazine? The AEGEEan interviewed them about this exact question.
Erika at Agora Zaragoza
Erika Bettin, President of AEGEE-Venezia, has become very active in AEGEE even though being close to quitting AEGEE only a few months ago. Today she is a member of different projects such as the Culture Working Group and the Election Observation Project and her most recent position is Editor of the People section in The AEGEEan.
Cosmina Bisboaca is from AEGEE-Torino, which she joined one year ago, and has been trying many ways to get more and more active. The first thing she did in AEGEE was becoming a journalist for The AEGEEan and today she is the new editor of the European Events section.
What made you apply to become an editor?
Erika: I entered The AEGEEan team officially in late November and I tried to be as active as possible. When I saw the open call for the editor position, I was doubtful, because I was very new in the team, but I took the chance and it paid off. You know, “When I grow up” I want to do this for a living and I’m trying to grab every single opportunity to grow and make new experiences.
Cosmina: I was a journalist for one year now, so when I came to know about the vacancy I immediately decided to apply. I felt like it had to be the next step of my AEGEE experience.
Erika, what made you apply for the People’s section?
I applied for the People’s section because it is my favorite. I’m really into storytelling and I truly believe that our Network is full of inspiring stories to tell. So I’d like to implement the storytelling part, besides the Member of the Month interview. One of my dreams is to reach some of the founding members of AEGEE and some pillars of our association as well. I also have some crazy ideas about some radio podcast or video interview to include in the articles.
What do you like about being part of The AEGEEan?
Erika: If The AEGEEan would ever have an actual newsroom, it would be cozy and colorful, that’s what I like. We are a small group that works hard to deliver good articles. Unfortunately we have never met in person, but I like the fact that no matter at what time I send a message to Anna Gumbau Martinez (the Editor in Chief ed.), she’s always more than fast in answering, and so is the team.
Cosmina: Being part of such a team is great and especially rewarding. It has helped a lot to improve my knowledge about our association and to get to know more about what is happening on the European level and what the projects, aims and values of our association are.
The strategies and ideas we discuss almost every day help us to develop not only as a team, but also to develop ourselves separately. It’s interesting to see how we sometimes disagree on things as a result of our cultural background and different ideas and how this helps us to be a stronger team than before, facing each other and discussing.
How would you like to see the team develop in general?
Cosmina: I think that more cooperation in a communicative sense and more coordination would be nice. But we are working on that as we have strengthened ourselves a lot recently.
Erika: Journalism never sleeps so I really believe that velocity in publishing is the key. Moreover I think that our Network deserves to have an official journalistic point of reference and I find, unluckily and inexplicably, that our magazine is somehow underrated. In certain periods, you always see the usual names who sign the articles so I’d love to see the team grow further.
Erika, in the People’s section there will soon be focus on the candidatures for the Agora. How will you help ensure that all candidates get the same amount of exposure?
As soon as we have all the candidate names we will surely start to approach them, to give us an interview and present them to the Network. Again, the key is the rapidity, so hopefully we will have them ready some weeks before the Agora. I will encourage journalists to have, whenever it is possible, face to face interviews with the candidates, because it’s faster than you can imagine.
Cosmina, in the European Events section there will soon be focus on preparing for the Agora Patra. How will you help ensure that participants will be well prepared for the big event?
As Erika said we will interview candidates for the Comité Directeur, Juridical Commission, Network Commission and the Secretary of the Agora. There will be information about the workshops and the AEGEE Fair. Moreover, there will be an Agora Live Coverage in cooperation with the PRESS team in order to keep those who cannot attend the Agora updated. After the Agora, we will still share information about what has been decided and what has changed.
Also in general it has been difficult to get journalists to write about European Events taking place and thereby we don’t hear about all of them. How do you think that can be changed?
Cosmina: True. This is a common block that prevents people from knowing how many awesome events are being organized around Europe. I think that just asking the participants to write an article could work, I am sure some will dare to share his/her feelings on a screen. All in all, it’s a nice way to thank the organizers for the great job they have done.
What other type of articles would you like to see published in your section?
Cosmina: Every type of European Event of course: from Network Meetings to pre-events. I would like people to focus more on what the event taught them and how the experience changed their way of perceiving AEGEE and its extended range of opportunities.
It will be interesting to see what Erika, Cosmina and the rest of the editors team will come up in the near future hopefully developing the magazine even more.
Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-Zaragoza