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21 08 2006
| Judiciary Project |
Starting in March 2006, BIRN Bulgaria carried out a three-month long project, which sought to train young journalists on how to report from the courts. The training was informed by the fact that Bulgaria’s legal system was seen as the country’s greatest liability in its bid for EU membership. The training’s goal was the production of a series of articles providing analytical insight, rather than just straight-forward news reporting.
In the first half of this project, BIRN Bulgaria selected six journalists from top daily newspapers and media outlets. The selected participants included Lyubomira Budakova of the weekly magazine Tema, BIRN contributor Boryana Dzhambazova, Krassen Nikolov of the online news service Mediapool and daily newspaper reporters Velislava Panova of Novinar, Albena Pino of Dnevnik and Desislava Popova of Politika. Some of the journalists were just embarking on their careers. Most had a few years experience. While some had covered Bulgarian courts or conducted investigations, none had brought to bear a full-range of analytical tools for in-depth reportage on legal issues.
The journalists took part in a number of workshops. In the
first workshop, BIRN Bulgaria Country Director Albena Shkodrova introduced them
to BIRN's journalistic standards, techniques of analytical journalism and house
style. Following this, in a brain-storming session with special trainer John
Dyer and Albena Shkodrova, they were coached through their selection of topics
in the field of justice and home affairs to write stories on, and in planning
research and writing approach. The participants were provided with summaries of
media publications on the selected topics during the preceding 3 months, to
serve as background information for their articles.
As the journalists started working on their articles, they met regularly with
BIRN trainers for guidance and assistance. The first drafts of the articles
were assessed by Janon Fisher from the New York Times. On that basis, he held a
three-day workshop in which the project participants learned specific
information about the judicial system in Bulgaria, their rights in terms of
access to information at various stages of investigative and court procedures
and on possible journalistic approaches and practices in Bulgaria and in the
United States to exercise their rights to information.
In another session, Judge Neli Kutzkova also spoke to the trainees about the
Bulgarian judicial system, its structure and functioning, and reforms expected.
Tihomir Bezlov and Dragomira Paunova from the Center for the Study of Democracy
spoke on the topics selected by the reporters for research and reporting.
The nine analyses and one in-depth analysis produced at the end of the project
resulted in 60 publications and republications in Bulgarian and foreign media,
each of them reaching readership of between 10,000 and 50,000.
All of the articles were published in Balkan Insight, BIRN’s on-line newsletter
and on the website of the Institute on War and Peace Reporting, as well as in a
variety of other local and international media.
Vasil Chobanov, a prominent legal journalist, praised the project upon its completion as one "of great importance to the Bulgarian media world."
"BIRN offers a
very useful informational product and is equipped with an impressive team of
analysers. BIRN proves that good joint
projects are possible on the Balkans, and that the facts of the present are
more important than the past." - Vessela Tcherneva, Project Director, International Commission on the Balkans, Centre for Liberal Strategies
At the beginning of 2010 BIRN network published Digging Deeper - A Guide for Investigative Journalists in the Balkans, written in cooperation with Sheila Coronel, Director of the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism and professor of professional practice at Columbia University, New York.
