Author: birnEU

We are very pleased to announce the names of the ten journalists selected for the 2010 Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence. This year’s competition was very tight as proposals received depicted the most interesting taboo issues throughout the Balkans. The Selection Committee has chosen the ten most exciting, interesting and relevant proposals from the 150 ideas submitted by journalists from across the region.

The chosen journalists are:

 

• Ervin Qafmolla from Albania
• Mila Popova from Bulgaria
• Doroteya Nicolova from Bulgaria
• Robert Tomic from Croatia
• Jeton Musliu from Kosovo
• Majlinda Aliu from Kosovo
• Ruzica Fotinovska from Macedonia
• Mircea Opris from Romania
• Georgiana Ilie from Romania
• Ivan Angelovski from Serbia

 

These journalists will now become members of a growing network for journalistic excellence in the Balkans, receiving the mentoring of internationally recognized experts during their own research in order to produce the best in-depth articles with the possibility of world wide promotion and syndication. The initial phase includes an intensive programme of training, research and reporting, beginning with a week-long seminar in Berlin on April 27^th and culminating in an awards ceremony at the end of the year in Vienna.

 

Updates on the fellows’ progress will be posted on the site regularly.

 

 

Outdated laws in the field of culture, delays in adopting new legislation a lack of transparency, insufficient budget for cultural activity, partitocracy in cultural institutions – election of leaders based on political affiliation rather than expertise, a lack of tax benefits for investment in culture, poor regulations of the art market, vague criteria for the award of funds finance in ‘open competition’, a lack of long term financing for projects and institutions, marginalisation of productions in the independent cultural scene. These were the key problems identified at an informal meeting on February 22nd, with representatives of a dozen of cultural institutions and organisations from Belgrade. The meeting was hosted by BIRN as part of the BICCED project (Balkan’s Initiative for Cultural Cooperation, Exchange and Development), which is supported by the Swiss Cultural Programme in the Western Balkans.

Participants also pointed out the division amongst key cultural organisations and opinion-formers, making joint activity or collective pressure on government and funding bodies almost impossible, and the chronic lack of interest from the media in culture in general and the problems faced by cultural organisations.

Among the participants were Aleksandar Lazarevic from the Centre for Study in Cultural Development (ZAPROKUL), an institution which itself works in the field of cultural policy, Darka Radosavljevic from the Independent Artistic Association Remont, Dragoslav Krnajski from the Initiative committee of the members of Association of Fine Artists of Serbia, Sladjana Novakovic form the Rende publishing house, Jelena Knezevic from the Bitef Theatre and BITEF festival, Jelena Vesic from the Prelom collective and informal network of independent organisations Other Scene (Druga scena), Ana Lukovic from the Ebart Media Documentation, as well as Vesna Milosavljevic from the SEEcult.org portal for culture, one of BIRN’s partners in the BICCED project.

The meeting was held as part of the preparatory phase of the BICCED project, which provides for training of journalists from the region of Western Balkans in analytical reporting on cultural policies. Three separate groups of journalists will be trained over the course of the three year programme. The issues discussed by these key opinion-formers in the cultural scene, will serve as a basis for defining the editorial strategy of the projects and topics looked into by the journalists engaged in the project.

A similar meeting was recently held in Sarajevo, and others are planned in Pristina, Skopje and Tirana to provide a region-wide view in preparation for a conference on cultural policies and media to be held on April 20th in Skopje. The first group of ten journalists chosen for the programme will attend the conference alongside experts and practitioners in the field of culture in the region.

Balkan Fellowship team members are engaged in selecting the best candidates for this year’s programme, on the topic of ‘Taboo’. The exact number of eligible applications received per country is the following: Serbia 42, Romania 27, Croatia 19, Bulgaria 15, Albania 12, Bosnia & Herzegovina 10, Kosovo 6, Macedonia 6, and Montenegro 6.

This year, candidates have focused on categories such as religion, national identity, poverty & health issues, domestic violence, technology, as well as political & economic issues, among others. The final results will be announced on March 25th on our website while all candidates will be individually informed about the results of the fourth annual competition for the Balkan Fellowship.

The Selection Committee will be in charge of choosing the journalists for this year’s programme. The International Selection Committee consists of six permanent members from the media community in the Balkans, Austria and Germany, as well as one annual member, who is an expert on this year’s Fellowship theme.

Ten journalists will have the opportunity to participate in the program, receiving funding and professional support to conduct research in the region and the EU. At the end of the 7-month long program, the international commission will award prizes of 4.000, 3.000, and 1.000 Euros to the authors of the top three best articles.

The winner is the one who least cares (stories)

The winner is the one who least cares – is one of  the rules in a world situated in the heart of a city far away from the shinny city centers, a city where unusual heroes live; those who drink away their beer mugs at pubs alongside the railroad, in quarters which are destroyed overnight and become large shopping areas.

The compilation of stories are a powerful combination of poetics, selfishness, humor and cynicism – the true measurements of interpersonal relations (love, wandering, of all our gains and losses) which never leave a sour after-taste.

Maja Hrgovic from Zagreb, Croatia, currently works for daily newspaper Novi list as a journalist in the culture section. In 2009 Maja was awarded with the first prize at the end of the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence annual programme for the article “Families Pay the Price as Women Go West” – focusing on socioeconomic migrations. As journalist she has several years’ experience of covering gender issues and she is one of the leading bloggers in Croatia. Her stories, among others, have been published in multi-author compilations such as “Ekranpriče 04” and “Da sam Šejn” as well as in many Balkan journalistic magazines at a national and regional level, and she has been recognized in the Anthology “Best Croatian stories of 2007”.