Agency Journalism” Laboratory Classes as a Way of Developing Students’ Basic Skills to Work on News Content

The objective of the article is to represent the experience of conducting the practicals during the study of professional discipline “Agency journalism” by the first year students, as well as to generelaize it and to evaluate its effectiveness with regard to introduction of different teaching methods and techniques that will help future journalists to understand this subject more thoroughly and its significance in the process of creating media product.A number of methods, which are implemented during the classes and which contribute to creative expression of students and approaches are analyzed, the examples of their works performed in the audience are given.The current role of news agencies in the Ukrainian society is difficult to overestimate, since they are in fact considered to be the main “players” in shaping public information flows. Therefore, a wide network of these agencies – world, nationwide and regional – makes it possible to observe the so-called “agency boom” and influences significantly the expansion of their activities.This recovery is caused not only by the huge number of events that take place during an information day, but also by the great capacities of agencies to cover them with the use of various technological “innovations”, in particular audio and video materials, which was previously impossible. In recent years, there have been many changes in our society that have had a significant impact on the development of domestic media, which have a significant impact on the public.During the course of studying the discipline (and this is a whole semester), the students usually work out at least 10-15 events, as well as visit the leading news agencies of the country “Ukrinform”, “UNIAN”, “Interfax”, participate in the events, that take place on the platforms of these agencies; prepare about 25 notes during the semester, which the lecturer analyzes, write two module tests – one theoretical and creative test and one research test.