Fighting prejudices on the Balkans
12 04 2005 In 2005 BIRN Bulgaria published several important stories, revisiting
traditional local prejudices and offering unbiased, distanced analyses
of several delicate inter-ethnic tensions.
One of them, treating Bulgaria's
treatment of ethnic Macedonians, was republished more than 25 times
by Bulgarian, Macedonian and international media, and was a news story
for a number of TV stations in the two countries.
Another one, reviewing the relationship between the nations and states
of Bulgaria and Romania within the framework of EU integration, was republished
more than 35 times, including in important European outlets, such as EU
observer.
The third one, concentrating on the fading tensions between Bulgarians and Greeks, was also republished by some international and local media.
Zoya Dimitrova, chairman of the Investigative
Journalists Association of Bulgaria, and deputy editor-in-chief of Politika
Weekly:
‘BIRN-Bulgaria's web page offers a fresh, sometimes unexpected,
European view of events here in Bulgaria, and of familiar faces in local
politics. The latest example was the portrait of the new mayor of Sofia
by Albena Shkodrova.
Balkan Insight is a very new outlet on the local media market, and the
speed with which it is becoming popular is amazing.‘