Author: birnEU

BFJE 2018 kicks off in Vienna

Fake news merchants, corrupt officials and political thugs are just a few of the targets in the crosshairs of journalists chosen for the 2018 Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence.

In its 12th year, the fellowship began with a four-day seminar in Vienna that brought together 10 new fellows from across the region, all committed to tackling this year’s theme: TRUTH.

Chosen from around 100 applications, they come from Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania and Greece.

Supported by ERSTE Foundation and Open Society Foundations and run in cooperation with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, the fellowship aims to promote the highest standards of journalism. It gives mid-career reporters the funding and editorial support to pursue investigative stories that cut across borders.

Over the next four months, fellows will carry out in-depth reporting as they try to untangle the webs of power, influence and money that envelope their proposed stories.

In Vienna, they received practical tips from BFJE Editor Timothy Large on how to research, report and write long-form articles for international impact.

They then hammered out story ideas and reporting strategies during intensive editorial sessions with Timothy Large, Balkan Insight Editor Gordana Andric, BIRN Regional Network Director Marija Ristic and BFJE Programme Manager Dragana Obradovic.

The seminar also included a visit to the newsroom of Austrian daily Der Standard, a media partner of the programme, and a session on cross-border collaborative journalism by Brigitte Alfter, Managing Editor of Journalismfund.eu.

Barbara Trionfri, Executive Director of the International Press Institute, spoke on global press freedom and trends in media development while Gordana Andric from Balkan Insight shared pointers on multimedia storytelling.

This year’s fellows are Arlis Alikaj (Albania), Iona Burtea (Romania), Claudia Ciobanu (Romania), Alexander Clapp (Greece), Ivana Jeremic (Serbia), Lorelei Mihala (Romania), Andrea Milat (Croatia), Andjela Milivojevic (Serbia), Leonida Molliqai (Kosovo) and Dusica Pavlovic (Montenegro).

BIRN Bosnia Cited As Example of Lawsuits Used as Tool

BIRN Bosnia’s own experience of lawsuits used as a tool to silence the media features in a new report on defamation cases against journalists.

The number of defamation lawsuits against journalists is rising in Bosnia and Herzegovina, although many of them get withdrawn, the online magazine about the media of the Media Center Sarajevo writes.

BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina recently experienced this, after it published an article about the public procurement process for buying an official car for a state ministry.

As the texts notes, referring to media freedom reports by Reporters Without Borders, local politicians often try to intimidate journalists by suing them for defamation, so deterring them from pursuing their work. Data from Bosnia’s journalists’ association and experiences from newsrooms also show that numerous lawsuits are used as a form of pressure.

Mirna Buljugic, director of BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina, recalled what happened in the case of her organization.

“The minister did not want to talk to us, but directed us to his secretary, but after we published the article, he called to talk. We asked whether there was something problematic in the article and he said, ‘No’. Twenty days later, there was a lawsuit against BIRN, the journalist and editor who worked on the story.

“During the course of the lawsuit, when we were supposed to answer the lawsuit, they went further, suggesting making a deal with the minister never to write about him again and never to write about that ministry, either, or about public procurement, which we refused immediately, after which the whole process continued.

“In the last week before we sent the answer, the minister gave up the lawsuit. This then went into BH Journalists’ statistics about politicians who influence the media and create pressures this way through defamation lawsuits.”

Professionalism remains the best protection when tackling political pressures through lawsuits, she and other media professionals conclude.

BIRN Albania Holds Workshop On Health

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Albania on Thursday May 3rd held a workshop on corruption, mismanagement and abuse of office in the health sector in Albania.

About 25 journalists, civil society activists, representatives of the office of the Ombudsman and the High State Auditing Office in Albania attended.

The workshop was part of “Transparency on Healthcare through data and investigative journalism”, a project supported by the United States Development Agency, USAID.

The goal of the workshop aimed to identify topics for the upcoming call of BIRN Albania for investigative grants in the health sector, but also sought to build bridges of cooperation between civil society organizations, journalists and independent institutions.

During the course of the workshop, representatives of the High State Auditing Office and the Ombudsman presented the methodologies they use to monitor public institutions and together with civil society representatives discussed ways in which the media can cooperate in fighting corruption in the health sector.

The workshop will be followed by a call for investigative stories that will be published on BIRN Albania’s award winning website, Reporter.al.

BIRN Albania Publishes Media Advocacy Manuals

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Albania has published two new manuals, which aim to give civil society and activists the necessary knowledge to advocate their causes in the media.

The first guide focuses on advocacy through the traditional and social media, while the second guide deals specifically with the various uses of photography as a medium for advocacy.

The drafting and publication of the two manuals was supported by the Balkan Trust for Democracy, BTD and the Swedish International Development Agency, SIDA.

Both manuals are part of BIRN Albania’s efforts to bridge the gap between civil society and the media in order to strengthen the fight against corruption and impunity, reinforce the rule of law and promote the respect of human rights and minorities.

They come on the heels of dozens of workshop between journalists and civil society organized over the last four years by BIRN Albania, which have guided the focus themes for investigative stories in its award winning publication Reporter.al.

The manuals cover an array of topics crucial to media advocacy, which range from making the difference from advocacy to propaganda, to tips and tools to produce a viral photo and how to distribute it.

These publications not only aim to strengthen the presence of civil society in media but also enrich the diversity of voices and opinions that comment on issues important to society in local media outlets.

To download a copy of the manual on “Advocacy through traditional and social media: A guideline for CSOs and activists” in Albanian, click here.

To download a copy of the manual on “Photography and Advocacy: A practical guideline” in Albanian, click here.

BBC and Al Jazeera English release BIRN-backed documentaries

The BBC and Al Jazeera English have produced investigative documentaries in recent months working alongside BIRN’s in-house investigative team.

BIRN has collaborated with the BBC and Al Jazeera English in recent months to investigate the far-right in the Balkans and a secretive arms pipeline to Syria.

The Al Jazeera English probe built on BIRN and OCCRP’s award-winning series of investigations, Making a Killing http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/page/balkan-arms-trade, which delved into how Balkan weapons were flooding the Syrian battlefields.

The “America’s Guns: Secret Pipeline to Syria” documentary was first broadcast in March on Al Jazeera’s People and Power show and involved filming in Croatia, Bulgaria and the US.

The report brought BIRN’s findings to a wider audience, revealed the human cost of the scramble to train and equip US-backed Syrian militia.  BIRN published two articles on the back of the research:  Death in Bulgaria: Pentagon Contractor’s Widow Fights For Truth and US Splurges More Cash on Balkans Arms for Syria.

On May 1, the BBC and BIRN published the fruits of its collaboration into the British nationalists operating in the Balkans. The BBC produced television and radio documentaries focussing on “the invisible man of Britain’s far right” – Jim Dowson – and his activities in Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia and Kosovo: Is this Britain’s most influential far-right activist?

BIRN released its own investigation, focussing on how Jim Dowson and an organisation he is closely linked to are increasingly active in Serbia: British Nationalist Trains Serb Far-Right for ‘Online War.

As part of the research, BIRN also employed a cyber forensic expert Andrej Petrovski of the Share Foundation, who is helping journalists improve their investigations by using cutting edge technologies.

These collaborations are part of BIRN’s Paper Trail to Better Governance programme, funded by the Austrian Development Agency.

BIRN Reports Nominated for Investigative Awards in Serbia

Two BIRN reports have been nominated for this year’s Investigative awards from the Independent Journalistic Association of Serbia in the categories for on-line media.

The first is The Coyote’s Trail – A Machine Gun’s Path from Serbia to Syria, produced within BIRN Hub’s project Paper Trail for Better Governance and in cooperation with OCCRP, and written by Ivan Angelovski, Jelena Cosic, Lawrence Marzouk and Maria Cheresheva.

It explores how heavy machine guns travelled from a Serbian state-owned factory to Syrian rebels, via a Bulgarian arms tycoon and a Saudi training camp.

The second is BIRN Serbia’s investigative story (part one and two) about illegal construction at the Kopaonik National Park, written by Slobodan Georgiev.

The report shows that a building under construction did not fall into line with the directions of the Institute for Nature Conservation of Serbia.

The report initiated a rapid-response inspection by the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure of Serbia, which ordered the investor to knock down the building and clean up the area, which lies at the highest point of Kopaonik mountain. A restaurant was built at the site despite the order, but the case is still ongoing.

Journalists Trained for Environmental Investigations in Montenegro

BIRN, CIN Montenegro and Monitor magazine held a training course in Podgorica from April 26-28 for journalists, teaching the investigative skills needed to produce stories covering environmental issues.

Topics covered by the course included investigative journalism techniques, online storytelling, multimedia training, video and photo editing, as well as information on domestic and EU politics in the sphere of environmental protection.

A call for investigative stories with an environmental angle was launched in March as part of a project to strengthen investigative reporting in Montenegro, founded by the EU Delegation in Podgorica.

Three journalists have been awarded grants to cover their expenses while carrying out investigations and writing stories on the environment and related to Chapter 27 within the EU accession process.

The journalists will have nine months to dig deeper and research their ideas, and will also have the opportunity to work with experienced editors as their mentors to guide them through the process of writing to BIRN standards.

BIRN Kosovo Reports on Progress of Corruption Cases

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and Internews Kosova, for 12 years, have monitored the Kosovo judicial system at all levels in order to assess its performance in respecting legality, work ethics and judicial proceedings.

The monitoring also included cases targeted for visa liberalisation in all court instances where the judicial procedure takes place. In order to have a situation analysis on the fulfillment of the second criterion for visa liberalization, BIRN and Internews Kosova drafted a report with detailed data on the status of the targeted cases.

Download the Full Report
English | Shqip

Court Monitoring Report 2017

For 12 years, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and Internews Kosovo have monitored the Kosovo judicial system at all levels in order to assess their performance in respecting legality, work ethics and judicial proceedings.

A particular focus of this report  is on  corruption cases, including criminal offenses that are of interest to society, monitored during 2017, but it also addresses other issues observed during the work of monitors in the field. Moreover, the report highlights procedural violations by judges, prosecutors and other parties during court proceedings, observed by court monitors in courts of the Republic of Kosovo. The report contains procedural violations, ranging from failure to hold court hearings, changing of witness statements, failure to schedule court hearings, unreasonable delays in trials, failure to comply with the legal deadlines for the initial hearing, holding trials without the presence of the accused, disorder at trial, poor preparation of prosecutors for the trial, and failure to hold hearings due to the lack of court interpreters as one of the basic principles of justice, for trials to be in a language that is known and spoken by the defendant in the proceedings.

Read report in English

Court Monitoring Report 2016

On May 8th, 2017, BIRN and Internews Kosova marked a decade of monitoring Kosovo’s judicial system with the launch of the 2016 Court Monitoring Report.

This project has been implemented for ten years now, and each year it has provided an overview of the situation in Kosovo’s justice system and has offered recommendations on how to increase transparency and accountability at all levels of the system.

This year’s report reflects the monitoring of 600 court hearings across 26 courts in the country throughout 2016, including basic courts, the Supreme Court, and the Court of Appeal. Panel participants included BIRN Kosovo Director Jeta Xharra, Internews Kosova Executive Director Faik Ispahiu, Chief Prosecutor Aleksandër Lumezi, as well as representatives from the Supreme Court, the Prosecutorial Council, and the Judicial Council.

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Read report in English