TrainingBIRN Summer School BIRN Network About us
BIRN Newsletters
You can subscribe free of charge to Balkan Insight, BIRN's weekly
online publication analysing and investigating important developments in
the region.
Subscribe
31 03 2010
Babe, Kosmaj - Under the name "What Is Wrong With This Text," BIRN Serbia organised a two-day training (26/27.03.2010.) workshop, which kicked off on Friday, as part of the "Eye on Public Finances" project, for nine journalists from the biggest media outlets in Belgrade in order to improve their skills in reporting about Serbian budget.
| Tired but happy at the end of the training sessions |
During the training event, Roger Jeal from the Thompson Reuters foundation and Aleksandar Vasovic from the Thompson Reuters bureau in Serbia have tried to detect present problems in reporting on budget and then show the way of fixing them.
The importance of economic news for general public; how to write it and make economics understandable for everyone; whether it has to be boring; and how to use numbers were the main themes of the sessions.
Opening the event, Jeal made reflections on what was happening in the Serbian budget and economy since he had trained on the first training on budget reporting which BIRN organised in late November.
Vasovic's training session was focused on participants’ budget stories which were previously written for the BIRN website. The trainees were then given a writing exercise - to rewrite an example of bad budget story.
| Connect lead with life of an ordinary man |
Second day of the training started with discussion on the rewritten stories with Vasovic pointing on mistakes. It turned out that leads of news were the main problem in terms of how to make it related to an ordinary citizen.
Furthermore, the group was given to watch a BBC TV programme on the British 2010 budget and then, comparing it to the reporting on budget in Serbia, find different ways for covering such topics.
“Eye on Public Finances” was launched in late 2009 by BIRN Serbia and Pro Concept. The aim of the programme is to broaden the understanding and discussion on budget issues among MPs, NA staff, media representatives and CSO’s, as well as to increase the public demand for transparency and accountability.
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.
Komentari:
Nema komentara.