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BIRN Kosovo
Lipjan, June 22, 2005
23 06 2005 Twenty-seven young people took part in a journalism workshop organised by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, in Kosovo and by Balkan Sunflowers, an international non-governmental organisation that focuses on educational issues.
Twenty-seven young people took part in a journalism workshop organised
by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, in Kosovo and by
Balkan Sunflowers, an international non-governmental organisation that
focuses on educational issues.
Jeta Xharra, director of BIRN Kosovo, held the course on basic international
standards of journalism at the Lipjan Youth Centre.
Trainees were asked first to analyse the content of local newspapers in
terms of their different editorial strands: news, news analysis, features
and comment.
Aspects such as sourcing, preparing and conducting interviews and avoiding
biased and inaccurate reporting were then covered. Following this, each
participant was given a practical assignment, which involved conducting
a short interview.
The trainees were also given two stories to read, in order to test their
ability to detect inaccuracies, bias and undue comment.
During a written exercise, trainees were required to reorder the information
according to its relevance, balance the sources and correct the inaccurate
information in the article.
Albulena Brestovci, 19, said her newly acquired journalism skills would
come in useful in Lipjan.
“We want to produce a local paper because a lot of things happen
in our city and people are not informed,” she said.
“The skills I have learned here will help me tell better stories
about what is going on in the municipality.”
Alicia Gimenez, 22, a Spanish national and a graduate of journalism, said
the course had performed an important task in boosting the trainees’
self-confidence.
“Before this training they didn't feel confident about starting something
by themselves,” said Gimenez, who is working as a volunteer for Balkan
Sunflowers and is helping students in Lipjan to set up a local paper.
Gimenez added “training at the hands of professional journalists
who speak the students’ language makes them confident that fair and
good journalism in Kosovo is possible if they work hard”.
The students who took part in the workshop were:
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.
