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2010 training season started

26 02 2010  Belgrade, Nis - BIRN Serbia continued with training activities during February within the project of supporting the media from the South of Serbia.

Webinar
A special two-day web training, the second in a row, for editors and web developers of presheva.com and juznevesti.com. The training took place in Belgrade’s Media centre. These two portals, one in Albanian and the other in Serbian, are the biggest and most relevant in the region of South Serbia.

Webinar at Media centre

The first day was focused on content management principles: how to write effective online content for websites, learn specific, practical techniques for evaluating and improving existing contents, finding out how to write search engine optimised content, receive a wide-ranging sets of practical guidelines and advice, discover how users read the content, practice and refine new knowledge in different sets of exercises throughout the day.

BIRN engaged Branko Cecen and Nevena Rsumovic, web media experts to present the latest development and studies referring to consumer’s habits on the web and the new strategies for editors.

New techologies for new age

 
Participants had a chance to measure and improve their knowledge in terms of editing the content for the different segments of their portals through different exercises.

“I’m delighted with the enthusiasm of the participants” said Cecen, after the first day of training.  

The second day was dedicated mostly towards the improvement of technical and visual characteristics of web portals. Dejan Restak, former founder and director of B92 web portal, presented several case studies explaining the importance of a clear vision behind every single site.

“You should know from the beginning, the details on the community which you want to attract with your portal because this is the grounds for any other improvements” said Restak.

He consulted participants over the methods for technical enhancements for their sites, usage of CMS and better optimisation of systems.

Vision and mission

“It was a great experience to listen and learn from the guy who was responsible for the development of one of the major information sites in the region” said Vitomir Ognjanovic from juznevesti.com.

South Serbia Special

The BIRN editorial team held a two-day meeting in Nis as a regular training session for journalists from the South of Serbia. Six journalists from six local media outlets, combined Serbian and Albanian, discussed the major problems and issues in the region. Also, two sessions were dedicated to analysis on previous work: BIRN editors analysed articles done by trainees in order to stress the main mistakes during the work and to mark improvements.

Analysis of the current situation in the region showed that there are major problems is the process of forming the National council of Albanians because there is no consensus and final decision of the method for election of the representatives in the council.

Also, the economic situation and security were stressed as particularly problematic - there are no investments, no new jobs; a lot of people from Preshevo are using visa liberalisation for moving towards EU countries. Also, recently there was a case of an attack on a policeman, which remains unsolved, as well as the case from last year when a police car was rocketed near the border with Kosovo.   

 
In the next two weeks, BIRN correspondents will investigate according to the agreed directions in order to produce analysis and features. That material will be the basis for debate on a conference which BIRN is planning to organize in mid April this year.