I was 17 it was in 2008 I was making a
story about how Central Asian countries
started suffering from online censorship
and one of the first interviews I had
for this series of stories was with a
famous Russian blogger over the phone
I didn’t have much experience in
interviewing back then it was probably
my third interview so and it had to be
with a very influential media person I
was stressed and trembling and I was
walking from one corner of the room to
the other preparing to make a call and
hoping deep inside that he would not be
come but he did and I introduced myself
and he agreed to talk to me so I started
asking him questions in the very
beginning I barely followed what he was
saying but as he spoke to me I come down
and could finish with my questions
he gave me an interview which made my
story very popular and it was a success
despite me being so worried about it
but I think that one of the reasons that
what that was a success was that he
didn’t see me it was a phone call he
didn’t know that I was 17 and just
graduated from high school most people
the journalists at Club the news website
I’ve been working for our young people
like you and me their high school and
university students Club is a new news
website and a school of journalism and
the most stories written for the news
website are done by young people aged 15
to 25 but despite their young age our
news website is the fifth fifth most
popular media in the country interviews
have been taking 30 to 40 % of our daily
work besides fact-checking
and writing itself and when we took
interviews over the phone
it wasn’t a problem at all but whenever
we showed up in front of the people we
wanted to spoke to speak to or in front
of the other journalists like grown-up
journalists we saw very different
reactions from sincere surprise to
arrogance but in most cases we were
simply laughed at I remember covering
the presidential election in 2009 I was
filming the president giving his vote
when I suddenly realized that I was
surrounded by tall camera man with big
equipment who were making fun of me a
girl with a small handicap we were
mocked by the grown-up journalists who
thought that we were too young to be
serious and professional reporters and
that we could be real competitors to
them but things changed dramatically in
2010 when we suddenly became the only
news media outlet which was covering the
revolution so-called April revolution in
trustworthy way the other media was a
grown-up journalists they either covered
only the official side of the story
having the comments of the state or just
keeping silence while the protesters
stormed local administrations in the
provinces back then I was 19 and I was
already an editor at cob the youngest
reporters who covered the revolution was
me with 17 and the 18 years old and they
were making calls from the office while
the oldest were 24 and 25 and they were
at the central square of the Capitol
where deadly clashes were happening and
that was the day when we got recognition
from our readers hundreds of thousands
of users visited our web site in those
and step by step we started getting more
trust from our readers and from grown-up
journalists to media like The Associated
Press The Guardian the New York Times
started quoting us and referring to us
in the stories each year we learned new
formats and introduced some of them to
the Kyrgyz media for the first time in
2013 we started making more videos and
we also became pioneers in live video
broadcasting and what was amazing the
journalists who previously made fun of
us started coming and asking for our
help in setting up their own read
casting capacity and we were never
afraid of experimenting with new formats
and new equipment this year we became
the first Kyrgyz media website which
started using drones not just for
capturing beautiful landscapes but also
for showing problems and investigating
corruption this year our 18 year old
camera operator Tilak used a drone to
show how Kyrgyzstan and Russia who
wasted millions of dollars to build a
hydroelectric power plant which was
never finished let’s have a look at this
video
[Music]
our team our video team has also used a
drone to fly above one of the biggest
green parks in the capital Bishkek and
they found a big scale illegal
construction over there which is
prohibited by the law and they managed
to capture numerous beautiful mansions
owned by public officials businessmen
and members of parliament over there so
earlier this month our 18 year olds
video operator Assad captured one of the
biggest ever fires in the capital
Bishkek and it was an oil stock fire
basically and let’s see how it looked
we have gotten even as far as
investigating how the president of our
country is building in your house again
we sent a drone over the construction
site after the opposition leaders told
that the president got that land as a
bribe from a future mayor of the capital
and no surprise this video was also made
by an 18 year old couple of guys and
let’s look how it look like
your skorca gardna destino Vedanta
straightener canopied American spy Rita
is the attack upon me
[Music]
as I mentioned the authors of this video
are 18 years old but they are already
considered veterans at club since the
youngest journalists are 15 and by the
way this year the president of our
country mentioned us for the first time
in his public speech so it happened
before we started sending drones over
speaking at the press conference
he’s said in front of dozens of
journalists that after reading one of
the stories at court he had a feeling
that he stepped in a piece of and
we think that this is the best
recognition we could ever get from a
president of a country with a highly
corrupt government
he apologized late to the day but we
think that his criticism is a sign that
even though it is now treated seriously
people always ask me how does it happen
that such young people cover all of
these serious issues quite often when we
describe what we do at club we say that
we cover politics or uncover corruption
despite the young age of our authors but
through the years I started
understanding that we are doing it not
despite their age but because of their
age young people are quite often
underestimated and the grown-ups thing
just don’t believe in what we can do and
we can actually a lot we are brave and
we have the power to stand up for
ourselves and make the world a much
better place and it doesn’t matter if we
do it through the journalism or anything
else that will up doing so don’t be
afraid of your age just if you see that
there is something unfair in this world
happening don’t wait till you get older
to change it because you can start today
and you may see how you succeed much
earlier than you ever imagined
thank you [Applause]