Author: Eleni Stamatoukou

– What was your fellowship story about? Why have you selected this investigation? 

I applied for the fellowship in early 2013, at a time when the Romanian anti-corruption agency was investigating quite a lot of local politicians: mayors, members of parliament, even a former prime minister. The investigations led to many convictions and international praise for this effort at fighting corruption, but that didn’t stop a lot of Romanians from still supporting the officials. At one time I read an article about a protest in Năvodari, a small town on the Black Sea coast, against the arrest of the local mayor, Nicolae Matei, accused in a corruption case. Images showed priests, teachers and children holding placards demanding the mayor’s release. I saw this as a case study on corruption: how power structures are built and how corruption infiltrates communities, deep down. I wanted to go to Navodari and see how that happens.

– Why are long-form investigations /stories important?

This type of journalistic work is essential for understanding complex stories: as a reporter, you need to dive deep into the world you’re about the explore, and that means trying to understand the connections between people, showing a real interest in people’s lives and that you’re not just a visitor who wants to “score” another story. Telling such a story takes time and resources: reading everything that is relevant on the topic, doing dozens of interviews during multiple field research trips, sending information requests and waiting for official answers, all with permanent editorial guidance.

Which fellowship story do you like best and why?

I enjoyed many stories but will only mention one, about the garment industry in Romania and Bulgaria, by Laura Stefanut. It exposed the tough working conditions in which thousands of women in these countries work, an unseen reality for many. This is what the best stories do: they reveal invisible truths about worlds that appear familiar and harmless.

Why would you recommend a colleague to apply for the fellowship?

This fellowship means journalism done right. For me, it was one of the most useful professional experiences I ever had: it fed my appetite for complex stories and taught me how to extract the essentials out of them, in order to tell them properly. As a fellow, you benefit from the guidance of excellent editors and also have the opportunity to learn from great journalists from other countries. And, you’ll have lots of fun doing all of that.

What is your biggest take-away from the fellowship experience?

Among others, this experience taught me how to clarify my purpose for doing the story and define a short working hypothesis. At the same time, it taught me to be ready to adjust when reality (which means field work and interviews) kicks in. This permanent process of adjusting to reality and readiness to tell complex truths is what makes it all worth it, after all.

BIRN and Erste Foundation is offering 10 fellowships for a 10-month professional development programme, culminating in the production of a compelling longform story.

For more details visit the link

 

Tamara’s fellowship story was about holocaust denial in Croatia. Today she speaks to us about her investigation and the importance of the long-form stories.

– What was your fellowship story about? Why did you choose this investigation?

My fellowship story was about Holocaust distortion and the impact of that process on society in the EU’s newest member state. Through the investigation, I showed that Croatian police and judicial institutions generally did not respond to various forms of historical revisionism even though they are punishable by domestic law. I chose this topic because in that period, 2016 and 2017, due to the non-reaction of institutions and ignoring the law, hate speech and attacks on various minorities were spreading throughout Croatia.

– Why are long form investigations/stories important?

The long investigation/story is important because it is the only journalistic form through which it is possible to investigate the context of the topic, analyze the whole problem, explore its background and offer possible solutions. A journalistic story cannot be of good quality without all these segments. Unfortunately, due to widespread commercialization, lack of time and resources, such stories are becoming less common in most media. That is why this fellowship is a great opportunity for investigative journalists.

– Which fellowship story do you like best, and why?

Barbara Matejcic’s “Cruel Wars Cast Shadow Over Mixed Marriages” because through an excellent feature she showed how the disaster of war breaks through the everyday life of so-called ordinary people. And, how the citizens of post-conflict areas have been living with the consequences of wars for a long time, even decades after they ended.

– Why would you recommend a colleague to apply for the fellowship?

The BIRN fellowship provides you with all the resources you need for a great story, valuable editorial help, and the opportunity to have your story published in prominent media. It’s a unique opportunity.

– What is your biggest take-away from the fellowship experience?

The experience of working with editors of major international media, networking with a bunch of great journalists, and a lot of traveling.

BIRN and Erste Foundation is offering 10 fellowships for a 10-month professional development programme, culminating in the production of a compelling longform story.

For more details visit the link

Milica Stojanović, 33, is based in Serbia and has been working as a journalist for Balkan Insight for the last four years. As a child in the 1990s, she remembers the grownups complaining about Yugoslavia’s and Serbia’s then leadership. Her dream then was to ask these people why they are so mean. Her dream did not come true, but she did learn that people who ask questions are called journalists, so she became a journalist and started writing stories among others and about multi-ethnic coexistence in Kosovo and Serbia.

Together with her colleague Serbeze Haxhiaj, in the context of the Peaceful Change Initiative competition, Milica won first prize for their article “Serb Monastery Shelters Kosovo Albanians”, which told of how a Serbian Orthodox Monastery provided shelter for Albanian civilians during the 1998-99 war in Kosovo.

That story is part of Balkan Insight’s new project, called “Solidarity Stories”, presenting stories of human compassion across the ethnic divides during the conflicts in former Yugoslavia.

Let’s meet Milica!

1. Why did you decide to become a journalist?

When I was little, during the Nineties, the situation in Serbia was quite bad and chaotic looking from a child’s perspective and the grownups were mostly complaining about the Yugoslav and Serbian then leaderships. I wanted to grow up and ask these leaders why they are so mean and why they do not do better for us all. Later, I found out that the people that can ask them such things are called journalists. Later still, in the first years after the political switch in Serbia in 2000, the media scene was quite alive, and I liked the idea of being part of it. Unfortunately, the media scene by the time I started working was already broken, so my childhood wish did not come true, but my current job came out as even better.

2. What do you like most in your job in Balkan Insight, and what is the most challenging thing?

What I like the most in BI is two things: the scope of topics I can work on and the freedom to do it. When it comes to scope of topics, a big part of my job is working on Balkan Transitional Justice program, one of BIRN and BI trademarks in this region and in Europe. On this program, I cover things like war crimes trials in Serbia but also wartime-related political life problems. Also, I am working on features, analyses and investigations about still unprosecuted war crimes as well as about the lack of responsibility either to prosecute them, or to compensate the victims and/or their families in any way.

Since the war in Ukraine broke out, we were also trying to cover some aspects of that for our audience, where our most important project is Eyewitness Ukraine.

3. Solidarity Stories is BIRN’s new project, presenting stories of human compassion across the ethnic divides during the conflicts in former Yugoslavia. Tell us more about this project and your contribution.

Among hundreds of BTJ stories about crimes, perpetrators, suffering and lack of responsibility of any kind, Solidarity Stories is different. It is a series of stories about people who were brave and aware enough to help their neighbours and fellow residents, or even people they saw for the first time in their lives, risking their own security and in some cases losing their lives, like Refik Visca, Predrag Dacic or Tomo Buzov.

4. Together with your colleague Serbeze Haxhiaj you have been awarded for your solidarity story ‘Serb Monastery Shelters Kosovo Albanians’. Tell us more about this story and the award.

“Serb Monastery Shelters Kosovo Albanians” is about the Visoki Decani Monastery, near Decani/Decan in Kosovo, which sheltered Albanian families who’d fled their homes before Serbian paramilitaries at the very end of the NATO bombing in June 1999. Although this is the lead of the story, it is really a story about the longer-term efforts of Decani monks to protect endangered civilians in the area, which in different times from the summer of 1998 to the summer of 1999 were Albanians, Serbs and Roma. Shaban Bruqaj and his family were among the families saved in June 1999 and he still remembers Abbot Sava Janjic as person who helped them, so this is also a story about gratitude.

This story, together with another BIRN story, “Serb Saves Albanian Neighbours in Kosovo”, won first prize in the media award competition of Peaceful Change initiative. The ceremony is on March 16.

Serbeze and I have worked jointly on stories basically since I started working for Balkan Insight. For example, we were dealing with problems with opening wartime archives, problems of shielding commanders from Kosovo war atrocity cases in Serbia and still unprosecuted war crimes committed in the Kosovo villages of Meja and Korenica in 1999. We have experience in joint work and it has always been a pleasure.

5. How difficult or easy is it for a Serbian journalist to report on such a sensitive period and collaborate with a Kosovar journalist?

I am not sure if there is any period in my life that was/is not sensitive when it comes to Serbia and Kosovo, so sensitivity is kind of permanent. Belgrade Balkan Insight’s team works very closely with Pristina Balkan Insight team both on today’s sensitive topics as well as on these from the war.

When it comes to BTJ stories especially, I would not say this is difficult, since I have many resources to do this type of job, and the most important would be editorial support and understanding. I cannot call it easy, either, because reading, watching or listening about people’s suffering, with a frustrating lack of responsibility for that, comes pretty hard.

6. In the coming weeks, Serbia and Kosovo will attempt to finalize a deal to normalize their relations. Do you believe journalism like yours and Serbeze’s has any impact on how politicians and people think?

When it comes to politicians – and I have to emphasize especially this generation of politicians – I don’t think any journalism itself can impact them. They can be impacted only by the possibility of not being officials anymore, but with such lack of confidence in media these days, I am not sure journalism can contribute there, no matter how high quality it is.

On the other hand, I believe it can impact people. I think people, in general, are good and empathetic and that hate is not something immanent but is adopted due to campaigns via politics, culture and media, which all started years before the war itself. So, when they read something like our Solidarity Stories, I think they can realize our “heroes” do not have to be exceptions. A world in which they are standard is possible.

 

Over the last decade, journalistic techniques have evolved alongside new developments that require professional and accurate coverage. Meanwhile, disinformation and propaganda proliferate online. Rapid technological change needs professional journalism to respond to these emerging challenges without sacrificing ethics or standards. 

Journalists and media outlets in the region often lack the capacity to cope with the challenges of these new technologies, particularly at the local level. However this is not only a problem for the media: cross-sectional responses are often required. 

With this specific capacity-building programme, based on real-world journalistic workflows, BIRN strives to provide assistance, training and resources to media outlets and civil society groups in the region, in order to boost their capabilities for dealing with complex tech-driven challenges in their working lives.

Our capacity-building programme focuses on two main areas:

• personal digital security of journalists and NGO workers in the field
• the political aspect of surveillance capitalism, as seen from the point of view of media and NGO workers.

The programme aims to empower participants to defend themselves against surveillance capitalism and understand power relations between the public and private sphere.

The programme focuses on personal privacy protection and document handling, reporting on issues around surveillance capitalism and finally digital activism and lobbying for policy change. Our wrap-up sessions encourage debate and networking, so that participants can develop relationships and establish connections with media and NGO sector workers, and  ultimately benefit from these synergies to cover surveillance capitalism with a broad perspective. 

The programme is led by Državljan D (Citizen D), an NGO built on the foundational principle of inclusive promotion of human and digital rights. Državljan D is highly experienced in digital security training for local and regional journalists as well as giving insights into digital privacy and security issues: from state to corporate surveillance and secure data handling, to app and device usage. In addition, they provide help and guidance to citizens and journalists looking to improve their digital skills and habits, thereby securing their digital privacy and strengthening their digital security. For more information, see here.

Topics we plan to explore: 

(1st and 2nd of April): Personal digital security: aiming to explain the issues of surveillance capitalism that impact on our privacy and security, to offer effective ways to combat it, and to facilitate hands-on exercises that participants can replicate in their own environments.

(3rd and 4th of April): Reporting on surveillance capitalism: focusing on developing effective media reporting skills when tackling surveillance capitalism issues, from both theoretical and practical points of view, while referencing media reports from the region.

(5th of April): Digital activism: addressing digital policy development, the role and practices of digital activists, including examples from the region and real-world strategies.

Who can apply?

Local journalists, CSO representatives, legal professionals and IT experts interested in media. We welcome anyone who wants to improve their digital skills and habits, protect their digital privacy, and upgrade their digital security, regardless of whether they have extensive knowledge of the area, or merely the enthusiasm to know more. Our applicants are those people who want to get informed, learn methods for safely and confidently reporting on these topics to audiences and communities, and to ultimately use this knowledge to advocate for better solutions.

How to apply?

Applicants should complete and submit the application form attached to this CfA. All applications should be submitted in English to [email protected], along with a CV.

DATE OF TRAINING: April 1st – April 5th, 2022

TRAINING VENUE: TBC

LANGUAGE: The training sessions will be conducted in English, with simultaneous translation into local languages also provided.

DEADLINE: March 15th, midnight, Central European Time

Download the Application Form.

 

 

Applications are solicited under this year’s theme, Choices. Successful applicants will be selected by an independent committee to take part in our ten-month programme for professional development, culminating in the production of a compelling longform story to be published by BIRN and its media partners.

Our output takes the form of features, analysis and investigations, presented in depth for a global audience. We emphasise strong storytelling and rigorous, on-the-ground reporting – qualities traditionally associated with the best magazine journalism.

The Fellowship provides:

• a bursary of €3,000
• the chance to improve your reporting skills by working in close collaboration with world-class editors
• ongoing mentoring and support from BIRN’s leading regional journalistic network, present in 14 countries of the Central and SEE region
• the opportunity to participate in an introductory seminar focused on reporting and storytelling techniques
• the chance to win additional awards worth between 1.000 and 3.000 euros for the best three stories
• worldwide publication of reports in local languages and English through our network of media partners
• membership of the Fellowship alumni network, designed to support networking between fellows who have participated in the programme since 2007

This year’s call is open until March 31st. Please send us your proposal using the official application form.

To maximize your chances of a successful application read more about the programme including the tips from our editors.

Here to inspire you is our editor, Neil Arun:

This year’s theme, Choices, asks you to picture your story along a pathway of options and decisions. We want to know a little bit about the events and the processes, the ideologies and the policies, that created the conditions for the story that you want to tell. In other words, as well as answering the usual questions – the who, what, where, how and why of your story – we want you to think about how we got here, and where might we be going next.

How is the problem that you want to examine a product of decisions taken in the past? How might this problem also reflect an ongoing failure to take the right decisions? What factors influence the decision-makers – what is their bias? The anthropologist, David Graeber, said: “the ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.” Perhaps this view also holds true for your story; perhaps you disagree with it. Either way, it should get you thinking along the right lines.

The theme is broad, as always, in order to accommodate a broad range of your applications. Do not worry if the story you have in mind does not seem an obvious fit: we prefer a strong proposal that fits the theme loosely over a weak proposal that fits the theme neatly. The purpose of the theme is to inspire you, and to test your ability to argue the case for your story according to some external, and somewhat arbitrary, criteria.

We are looking above all for stories that tell us something new about the world – or that reveal the familiar in a new light. And as always, the best pitches establish a link between the specific and the general. So, where you only have a general idea for the story that you want to cover, please also think about the specifics – the incidents, institutions and individuals – that can illuminate your idea. Conversely, if you have a very specific story that you want to pursue, please also consider what it means in general terms, in a European context.

A good Fellowship story will be the product of months and months of your dedication as a reporter – meeting people, sifting through documents, revising drafts, and examining every possible angle with an editor. If your pitch holds the promise of just such a story, it has a decent chance of success.

About the Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence

The Fellowship has been providing journalists with editorial guidance and funding to pursue agenda-setting stories for more than 15 years. Aimed at promoting the development of a robust and responsible press, the programme has helped shape journalistic standards across the region while boosting the careers of participating reporters.

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network and Erste Foundation set up the Fellowship in 2007 with a view to encouraging in-depth cross-border reporting in south-eastern Europe. In 2020, the programme was expanded to include four central European countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

To read our stories and find out more about the Fellowship please visit the Fellowship official page.

The new memorial room, entitled ‘The Lives Behind the Fields of Death’, opened on Tuesday at the Srebrenica Memorial Centre, with the intention of highlighting survivors’ stories and combatting genocide denial.

A joint project by BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Srebrenica Memorial Centre, it contains 100 video testimonies from survivors and personal items that they donated to the Memorial Centre’s museum collection. The testimonies can also be watched online on a special BIRN site.

BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina’s director Denis Dzidic said he was grateful to the 100 survivors and the family members of those who were killed in the July 1995 genocide for deciding to share their worst experiences and publicly speak about the consequences of genocide.

“This platform and memorial room aim to bring the Srebrenica story back to people’s personal experiences and contributing to reducing genocide denial and the misuse of genocide for political purposes. Nobody can remain unmoved by these stories,” Dzidic said.

The project was supported by the Netherlands, whose ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Jan Waltmans, told the opening ceremony that one reason why the exhibition is important because it gives “a human dimension” to the facts and figures about the genocide which have been determined by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

“We must never forget the Srebrenica genocide, neither the victims nor the survivors. The second reason is that education remains a cornerstone in attempts to prevent future wars, atrocities and genocides,” said Waltmans.

“During the first six months of my term in office in Bosnia and Herzegovina, through conversations, I have learned a lot about the pain and sorrow of people who survived the genocide, about families of victims who miss the presence of their relatives every day,” he added.

He also said that he had met “many resilient people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who believe in and fight for a country in which there is no room for inflammatory rhetoric and divisions, for a society in which children play together irrespective of their origin”.

High Representative Christian Schmidt, the senior international official responsible for overseeing the implementation of the peace process that ended the Bosnian war, said that the genocide continued to have an impact on life today in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“I come from a society in which successive generations dealt with genocide legacy. This process was painful and continued for decades. It was often interrupted by denial, partly because the crime in itself is unimaginable – one doesn’t believe in it,” said Schmidt, who is German.

“For that reason, a court investigation and detailed and empirical historic investigations are necessary. The reconciliation process cannot go on without it,” he added.

Johann Sattler, the EU Special Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who also attended the opening ceremony, warned that “the culture of genocide and crime denial continues to live”.

“The EU and many others here today are really working tirelessly and we are trying to learn lessons from the past and look towards the future, to preserve the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said Sattler.

The president of the managing board of the Srebrenica Memorial Centre, Sefket Hafizovic, said that the memorial room would be “proof of genocide” but also proof that it was the consequence of “ethnic nationalism”.

“The crime of genocide is a crime against the whole of humanity,” added Hasan Hasanovic, oral history team leader at the Memorial Centre.

Watch the video testimonies at BIRN’s The Lives Behind the Fields of Death site here.