A cultural exchange with future leaders of the Russian media

It is strange, flattering and quite humbling to be told you've changed someone's life. As a result of something you're said, they've decided to take a different path. This happened to me when Dmitry Shishkin, the deputy head of BBC Russian, and I were in Moscow on a university tour speaking to students, journalists and academics.

After our talks, there was often a flurry of tweets. But the one that struck me was from a humanities student: roughly translated it said "I've been so inspired that I've decided to return to journalism... I want to make a difference."

We spent three days in Moscow (left) giving a series of lectures and delivering workshops and seminars at three journalism schools. We spent the first two days at Moscow State University, an imposing building just off Red Square in the heart of the city. It is the oldest and most respected journalism school in Russia, and Dmitry's alma mater.

On day three we visited faculties at the State University for Humanities and the State University for Social Sciences, an astonishing place which appears to welcome you with a huge military arsenal as you enter.

We spoke about a whole range of subjects:

- The cornerstones of BBC journalism: truth and accuracy, impartiality, independence, public interest and accountability.

- The changing face of journalism: the importance of engaging with new media and ways of working; convergence; and multimedia.

- And, above all, how it is vital for any open democracy to have a free, challenging fourth estate so that journalists can scrutise and hold power to account.

It was fascinating to discuss all of these subjects with students who are likely to be some of the main players in the Russian media of the future. They asked some enlightening questions, from the thoughtful big subjects - how can journalism be truly objective and is impartiality possible when the media is owned by proprietors with very set agendas? - to the more practical: how do you deal with sources; is it possible to use an anonymous source; and how can you trust people?

We were also asked several times about the balance between truth and the power of a story. Can we run a story that is sensational if it is not entirely true? Is it more important to attract readers, viewers and listeners or to tell the absolute truth? I thought this was very telling and revealed some of the vast cultural differences between my Russian audience and the BBC.

There are 80 journalism schools in Moscow alone, and many more across the country. As a rule, they offer five-year courses which are very academic. They study the theory of journalism, rather than offering far more practical training and teaching.

The lecturers at Moscow State University were blown away by the material available on the BBC College of Journalism website. The concept of learning from respected colleagues in a whole range formats was completely new to them, and it was something there was a huge appetite for.

But they couldn't understand how journalism teaching could be purely practical: surely there is a need to understand the history and theory of journalism as well?

Dmitry and I went through very different systems to begin our careers at the BBC. It was fascinating to discuss with him the pros and cons of this. But the point we kept returning to - both in our conversations and with the talks to students and lecturers in Moscow - was how vital strong journalism is to any society, either East or West.

David Haywood is Head of the BBC College of Journalism Events Programme.