Category: News and Events

BIRN Albania Holds Roundtables on Local Government

Eleven roundtables held across the country discussed ways to empower actors for change and increase transparency at municipal level.

During June BIRN Albania held a series of 11 regional roundtables across the country with civil society activists and community leaders, addressing key issues for local government and discussing ways to empower actors for change in local communities
The regional roundtables were held in the towns and cities of Elbasan, Korce, Berat, Fier, Vlore, Gjirokaster, Kukes, Burrel, Lezhe, Shkoder and Tirana, as part of BIRN Albania’s project, Strengthening the Local Partnership between Media and Civil Society.

The project, funded by Leviz Albania and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, aims to strengthen the pressure mechanisms of the public on local government institutions and increase transparency, by strengthening cooperation between journalists, civil society groups and grassroots organizations.

The roundtables aimed to identify problems crucial to local communities. They will be used by a network of journalists – trained by BIRN Albania across the country – in order to draw up a list of interview questions for the mayors of Albania’s 61 municipalities.

Apart from carrying out interviews with mayors on issues important to their communities, the journalists will also produce a series of features on actors for change in local communities – in order to empower them through media exposure.

The features and interviews produced as part of the project will be published on BIRN Albania’s special focus page pushtetivendor.reporter.al, which is part of its award winning local publication Reporter.al.

The project, which apart from the BIRN team also involves 11 local journalists, will also produce two monitoring reports on the implementation of the requirements of the Freedom of Information Law by Albania’s local government institutions.

BIRN Albania Seeks Investigations Into Local Government

Three journalists can get grants to cover local government corruption and abuse of power while being mentored by experienced editors.

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Albania launched a call for investigative stories on local government on June 27th.

The call is part of the program “Exposing Corruption in Albania”, while the grants are supported by the Open Society Foundation in Albania.

Three journalists will be awarded grants to cover their expenses while conducting investigations and writing their stories on local government.

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

The call only applies to journalists from Albania and closes on July 15th.

Click for more information about the application procedure, with details in Albanian.

Thirrje për artikuj investigativë në fushën e Pushtetit Vendor

Thirrja organizohet nga Rrjeti Ballkanik për Gazetarinë Investigative në Shqipëri (BIRN Albania), si pjesë e programit të saj “Zbardhja e Korrupsionit në Shqipëri”, të mbështetur nga Fondacioni Shoqëria e Hapur për Shqipërinë, Balkan Trust for Democracy dhe National Endowment for Democracy.

Nëpërmjet këtij konkursi tre (3) gazetarë investigativë do të përzgjidhen për të prodhuar artikuj investigativë në fushën e pushtetit vendor, në bashkëpunim me shoqërinë civile. Fituesit do të përzgjidhen nga një juri e pavarur e përbërë nga gazetarë me eksperiencë dhe ekspertë në fushën e mirëadministrimit të pushtetit vendor.

Aplikantët e përzgjedhur, të cilët do marrin një bursë prej 1,200 USD (minus taksën të ardhurave personale), do kenë në dispozicion një periudhë tre mujore për të përfunduar investigimin e tyre dhe përgatitjen e artikullit për publikim. Bursat për gazetarët mundësohen nga Fondacioni Shoqëria e Hapur për Shqipërinë.

Kandidatët fitues pritet që të angazhohen dhe të përmbushin të gjitha detyrimet në lidhje me investigimin, siç janë: takimet e shpeshta me redaktorin, publikimin e tekstit në faqen e BIRN Albania www.Reporter.al dhe gjithashtu në www.BalkanInsight.com, si dhe respektimin e standardeve të gazetarisë investigative dhe etikës profesionale.

Kandidatët duhet të formulojnë një propozim të detajuar për konkursin. Propozimet duhet të kenë për qëllim ekspozimin e rasteve konkrete të korrupsionit, pandëshkueshmërisë dhe mungesës së zbatimit të ligjit në pushtetin vendor.

Prioritet në përzgjedhje do i kushtohet propozimeve të cilat përfshijnë një nga temat e mëposhtme, të sygjeruara si prioritare gjatë një tryeze të rrumbullakët midis gazetarëve dhe përfaqësuesve të shoqërisë civile të organizuar nga BIRN Albania:

– Problematikat në riorganizimin dhe ofrimin e shërbimeve të decentralizuara dhe të barabarta ndaj të gjithë qytetarëve të bashkisë, pavarësisht zonës së banimit;
– Mungesë transparence në vendimmarrje, e cila mund të përfshijë mungesë të njoftimeve dhe konsultimeve publike ose moszbardhje të vendimeve nga bashkia ose këshilli bashkiak;
– Favorizim, nepotizëm ose mungesë transparence në marrëdhënie të ndryshme kontraktuale;
– Keqmenaxhim i burimeve natyrore ose aseteve publike;
– Ndryshime jo transparente në administratën lokale ose në emërime;
– Raste korrupsioni ose abuzimi me pushtetin në administratën vendore.

Aplikantët mund të dërgojnë më shumë se një aplikim, por vetëm një propozim për kandidat do të përzgjidhet.
Të drejtën për të aplikuar e kanë të gjithë gazetarët në Shqipëri, të punësuar pranë mediave të tjera apo në profesion të lirë.

Kandidatëve u kërkohet të dërgojnë propozimet e tyre në formularin e aplikimeve (Kliko këtu për formularin), një CV dhe tre shembuj të punës së tyre me email në: [email protected]

Afati i Aplikimit: 15 Korrik, 2016
Kandidatët e përzgjedhur do të njoftohen deri më datë: 25 Korrik, 2016

BIRN Regional Board Meeting Held in Skopje

Directors, board members, partners and donors of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, met in the Macedonian capital Skopje on June 18-20 for the network’s latest regional Board meeting.

Attendees convened for the three-day meeting, held every 18 months, to highlight BIRN’s recent achievements, review its internal policy and discuss its future role in the region.

BIRN’s Steering Board also met to review internal policy, current training plans, anticorruption policy, obstacles faced by individual country, and a potential change in financial software.

A number of new policies were agreed upon and voted into effect by the BIRN Assembly.

During the meeting, BIRN directors also led special presentations on key topics currently affecting the political and media landscape in the Western Balkans, which included press freedom and the rule of law.

BIRN Regional Network Director Gordana Igric said that in the current regional political landscape “organisations such as BIRN working on promoting responsible journalism are more important than ever.”

The regional Board meeting was attended by Board members Stefan Lehne, visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe, Per Byman, Secretary-General of Radiohjälpen, Wolfgang Petritsch, Chair, Board of the European Cultural Foundation, Steve Crawshaw, Secretary General of Amnesty International, and Ana Petruseva, BIRN Maceodnia director.

Some of BIRN’s long-term donors, such as representatives from ERSTE Foundation, as well as ambassadors and representatives from Swedish, Norwegian and UK embassies, also attended the meeting.

Alongside Igric, BIRN’s regional country directors, including Mirna Buljugic from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Jeta Xharra from Kosovo, Kristina Voko from Albania, Dragana Zarkovic Obradovic from Serbia and Marian Chiriac from Romania, attended the event as well.

On Monday, 20 June, Igric, Lehne, and Petritsch, hosted a public panel on the ‘EU Prospects for the Region’, moderated by BIRN Macedonia Director Ana Petruseva.

BIRN BiH Journalists Coached on Role of Publicity in Court

Session led by Vasvija Vidovic focused on importance of publicity and transparency – as the only way for the public to keep an eye on the judiciary. 

Journalists of BIRN BiH attended a training session held by Vasvija Vidovic, a highly respected lawyer from Sarajevo with long experience in the field of law, in order to gain fresh education and insight into impartial reporting, the fight for transparency in the judicial sector and respect for the freedom and rights of the media.  

Vidovic, one of the most eminent persons in the Bosnian judiciary, began her long career in the former Yugoslavia as a judge in the crime section. In the meantime she gained extensive experience in numerous lawsuits and international and prosecution projects.   

The training focussed on the importance of the principle of publicity within the law on criminal proceedings, as prescribed under the European Convention, and on transparency and freedom of the media as the only way for the public to monitor the judiciary on behalf of citizens.

During their discussions, the trainer and the journalists reflected on examples from Bosnian practices that BIRN BiH journalists face daily while following war-crime trials and reporting on corruption, crime and terrorism.

Mentioned examples concerned disrespect for the principle of publicity and misuse of exceptions, with the aim of hiding omissions within the judicial system in Bosnia.

In view of such occurrences, Vidovic informed journalists of their rights, of the lawfulness of excluding the public, of the most frequent ways of keeping the public away from hearings against legal provisions, as well as their obligations to be clear, vociferous and persistent in their fight for transparency and information from court proceedings, unless stated otherwise under the law.   

The importance of authentic reporting and of the correctness of all pieces of information published on a media platform was accentuated in the BIRN training.

Besides that, examples of blatant violations of the presumption of innocence by the media in Bosnia and Herzegovina were also presented.

Vidovic praised the past practices of BIRN BiH journalists, pointing out that analyses by legal professionals indicated that BIRN BiH reported in an objective and professional manner.

Journalists were informed of their rights and obligations related to publishing personal data about suspects, as well as the obligations of prosecutors’ offices and the media in case of the termination of certain proceedings that had been published previously.

The attorney dedicated part of the training to protection of privacy, as well as to journalists’ inviolable right to protect their sources.

She also pointed to the importance of multiple checks of information and models of reporting in which journalists avoid making assertions, minimizing the chances of being accused of defamation.

By organizing this training session, BIRN BiH rounded off the education of its staff in the field of improving reporting on war crimes, and preparing them for the monitoring of the judiciary and reporting on organized crime, terrorism and corruption. 

BIRN Bosnia Reports on Crime, Corruption, Terrorism

BIRN in Bosnia and Herzegovina has started monitoring the work of Bosnia’s judiciary in rule-of-law cases in addition to reporting on war crimes.

BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina has started reporting on rule-of-law cases as the topic becomes a key issue for the country in the year in which it is planning to submit its European Union membership application.

BIRN’s new project focuses on providing the public with as much information as possible on Bosnia’s efforts to bring suspects to justice for the gravest crimes.

“Although organised crime, terrorism and corruption have been recognised as key challenges facing Bosnia and Herzegovina at present, there is no media dedicated exclusively to reporting on those issues, so we think this is a timely project that fulfills actual needs,” said Denis Dzidic, editor of BIRN in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The latest EU report on Bosnia and Herzegovina’s progress towards accession makes clear that corruption remains widespread in the country and that concrete work on processing corruption cases is almost non-existent.

It warns that it investigations into organised crime and terrorism cases must be sped up and improved.

Reports on organised crime, corruption and terrorism, as well as on war crimes and coming to terms with the past, will be soon published on a new media platform, detektor.ba.

BIRN BiH Reporters Cover Karadzic Verdict in The Hague

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Bosnia and Herzegovina sent two of its journalists to cover Radovan Karadzic’s verdict from The Hague in March with the support of the OSCE mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Denis Dzidic and Nedim Jahic spent three days in The Hague reporting live from the courtroom, giving interviews for international and Bosnian media outlets, interviewing Serge Brammertz, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and recording numerous reactions from relevant commentators before and after the verdict was pronounced.

A day before the verdict, on March 23, BIRN published an exclusive interview with Karadzic, Radovan Karadzic: ‘I Expect to be Acquitted’.

The interview had widespread impact: it was republished 259 times in other media outlets, including Britain’s The Guardian and Slovenia’s siol.net and was on the home pages of every respected news portal in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro.

The interview was read on BIRN BiH website 6, 113 times, a record readership for an article on the site.

For the first time ever, BIRN BiH had a live blog dedicated to the verdict announcement, which was followed by 2,000 unique visitors.

The live blog was also part of the Croatian Jutarnji list live blog.

The BIRN BiH Facebook and Twitter accounts were also fully dedicated to the live coverage, disseminating information from The Hague, but also from local reporters in Sarajevo, Srebrenica, Bratunac, Prijedor and Banja Luka.

In the week of Karadzic’s verdict, BIRN BiH’s Facebook page reached 107,000 people; its Twitter account had 35,772 impressions on published posts; and website www.justice-report.com had more than 30,000 unique visitors – all records for all BIRN BiH platforms.

BIRN BiH published eight exclusive reactions before and after the verdict on online platforms (live blog, Facebook and Twitter): Munira Subasic, from the Mothers of Srebrenica, Murat Tahirovic, from the association Victims of Genocide, Amor Masovic, Institute for Missing Persons, Serge Brammertz, the chief prosecutor, Peter Robinson, Karadzic’s legal adviser, Goran Petronijevic, Karadzic’s adviser, Momir Savcic, from the Organisation of Combatants of Republika Srpska, and Milorad Kojic, from the Republic Centre for War Crime Investigations.

During the time they spent in The Hague, Denis Dzidic and Nedim Hasic published the following articles, which had 30 republications in other media outlets:

Danas historijska presuda haškog tribunala

Praćenje izricanje presude iz glerije Tribunala

Hartmannova prisilno uvedena u Tribunal

Samo da živ dočeka presudu

Na Tribunalovom travnjaku

The BIRN BIH team also published the following articles while they were in The Hague:

Karadžić osuđen na 40 godina zatvora

Reakcije na presudu Radovanu Karadžiću

BIH ujedinjena u nezadovoljstvu

Dzidic and Hasic also gave live statements for the following media: klix.ba, media.ba, BH Radio, RSG radio, Antena radio, RTV Zenica, BHT, Radio 101 Prijedor, as well as speaking to Sky News and BBC News.

BIRN Wins Seven Prestigous Awards in May

BIRN’s investigative journalists and teams in Macedonia, Serbia, Albania and Kosovo have been given seven different awards in the course of one month for the quality of their reporting.

The most recent BIRN journalist to receive an award in May for his work was Boris Georgievski, author of the series of investigations called ‘Dossier Telecom’, produced for BIRN Macedonia online publication Prizma, who won the first prize in the European Union awards for investigative journalism for 2015.

The BIRN Macedonia team also won the second prize for its investigation and database, ‘Skopje 2014 Uncovered’.

BIRN Serbia journalist Aleksandar Djordjevic win first prize in the EU awards for investigative journalism in Serbia for his report entitled ‘Pumping Out the Pit and the Budget’ which was named the best investigative story in 2015.

Third prize went to Ivan Angelovski, Jelena Cosic, Petrit Colaku and Kreshnik Gashi for a story revealing how a multi-million-dollar road construction contract was quietly handed to a consortium with little highway-building experience and linked to controversial Serbian businessman Zvonko Veselinovic.

The story was produced as part of the ‘A Paper Trail for Better Governance’ programme, which is funded by Austrian Development Agency.

BIRN’s Albania investigation Albania’s Judges Wealth Escapes Scrutiny, by journalist Leonard Bakillari, meanwhile won the first prize in the EU Investigative Journalism Awards 2015 for Albania

BIRN’s film The Unidentified, investigating the commanders responsible for brutal attacks during the Kosovo war, was given the best short documentary award at the South East European Film Festival in Los Angeles. 

And finally, BIRN Serbia journalist Aleksandar Dordjevic scooped one more first prize for the best investigative journalism story in Serbia’s print media.

The award was given by the Independent Journalists Association of Serbia, NUNS, and the US Embassy to Belgrade. The investigation, produced by BIRN Serbia and published in the magazine Vreme, revealed how the Belgrade Business School, under pressure from government officials, unlawfully lent seven million euros to heavily indebted companies that were unlikely to repay the money. 

BIRN Macedonia Wins EU Investigative Awards

A series of articles by Boris Georgievski won the prize for best investigation of 2015, while second prize went to BIRN’s database, ‘Skopje 2014 uncovered’.

Journalist Boris Georgievski, author of the series of investigations called “Dossier Telecom”, produced for BIRN Macedonia online publication Prizma, won the first prize of the European Union for investigative journalism for 2015.

The BIRN team also won the second prize for its investigation and database, “Skopje 2014 Uncovered”.

The third prize, for young investigative journalist, went to Telma journalist Biljana Nikolovski.

“Dossier Telecom” analysed the voluminous evidence files from the New York Court case conducted against former leading figures in Magyar Telekom, accused of bribing government officials in Macedonia.

The research shed new light on the privatization of Macedonian Telecommunications and on the events that preceded it.

“Skopje 2014 Uncovered” contains extensive research that provides new insight into the public money spent on controversially changing the appearance of the Macedonian capital.

The basis of the research is an interactive online database, “Skopje 2014 Uncovered”, which contains all the sums, contracts, suppliers, names of companies and authors as well as investors from the project, and determines the final total cost of the project.

The Skopje 2014 Uncovered database is available in Macedonian and English, and in addition to the summarized data, enables easy cross-analysis of the data by users seeking in-depth information on public money spent on the project.

“Skopje 2014 Uncovered” this year also received the prestigious “Nikola Mladenov” award for investigative journalism.

EU Prize Highlights Cross-Border Collaboration

An award-winning investigation into a $75m road-building contract underscores the importance of cross-border collaboration.

An investigation into how a multi-million-dollar road construction contract was quietly handed to a consortium with little highway-building experience was made possible thanks to close collaboration between journalists in Kosovo and Serbia.

The story, which secured third prize last week in the European Union’s investigative journalism awards for Serbia [https://birn.eu.com/en/news-and-events/birn-reports-win-eu-investigative-journalism-awards], was produced as part of the Austrian-Development-Cooperation funded “A Paper Trail to Better Governance”  project.

BIRN assembled a team of five investigative journalists in Albania, Austria, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia to carry out a series of pioneering, year-long, cross-border investigations into the biggest players in this road building industry, their links to power and how they have spent – and sometimes squandered – massive public budgets.

Investigations, including the award-winning story – Veselinovic-linked Consortium Bags 75m Dollar Contract in Secret Deal http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/veselinovic-linked-consortium-bags-75m-dollar-contract-in-secret-deal,  were published on a bespoke webpage – Road to Ruin [http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/page/road-to-ruin-home]. It features an interactive map of highway projects as well as background material on how corruption affects the construction industry.

The prize-winning story was compiled by Petrit Colaku and Kreshnik Gashi in Pristina and Ivan Angelovski, and Jelena Cosic in Belgrade.

Project editor Lawrence Marzouk said: “Working across borders was absolutely critical for this story as it required official documents from institutions in both Serbia and Kosovo, as well as on the ground contacts.

“With the team’s close collaboration, we were able to build the full picture of Zvonko Veselinovic’s shady business deals.

“This investigation is just one excellent example of the many stories published as part of the project which would not have been possible without strong teams, working together across the region”.

“A Paper Trail to Better Governance” project started in October 2013 and has honed the skills of dozens of investigative journalists in the Balkans and Moldova, helping reporters to hold officials to account and improving the implementation and use of freedom of information laws.

BIRN Serbia journalist Aleksandar Djordjevic won first prize in the EU for his report entitled “Pumping Out the Pit and the Budget”.