In Fall 2009 there was the spontaneous idea to see the festival through a group of young reporters. The DOK Spotters produced interviews, radio reports and articles about the 51. festival. After that first successful try it became clear, that the DOK Spotters will go along with the festival for quiet a while.
Nowadays, the DOK Spotters are up to 15 pupils between 14 and 18 years of age, who are trained as young journalists for seven days during the DOK Festival. They do interviews, produce radio features and video reports on DOK Leipzig and write articles for the local newspaper as well as for online media. As members of the editorial team the youngsters get first-hand experience of how journalism works. All their reports can be found at: www.dok-spotters.de. The initiative has been realised in close collaboration with the Medienstiftung der Sparkasse Leipzig, the mdr and the Saxon State Institute for Private Broadcasting and New Media (SLM) for several years.
