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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 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.

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.

BIRN Reports Win EU Investigative Journalism Awards

BIRN Serbia journalist Aleksandar Djordjevic win first prize in the EU awards for investigative journalism in Serbia, while the third prize went to BIRN’s Ivan Angelovski, Jelena Cosic, Petrit Collaku and Kreshnik Gashi.

Aleksandar Djordjevic’s report entitled ‘Pumping Out the Pit and the Budget’ was named the best investigative story in 2015 in the EU awards for investigative journalism on Tuesday.

Djordjevic’s story revealed that the public company Electric Power Industry of Serbia awarded a public tender for to pump flood water out of the most important mine in Serbia to an inexperienced consortium, increasing the cost of the whole operation.

After the investigation in January 2015, BIRN was publicly criticised by Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and media that support his administration.

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 “A Paper Trail for Better Governance” programme, which is funded by Austrian Development Cooperatiion.

The president of the jury, a member of the Anti-Corruption Council, Miroslava Milenovic, stressed the importance of investigative journalism to the general public.

“If there were no investigative journalism, many important events in society, many cases of corruption and social neglect of public goods, the arrogance of the political and economic elite would stay hidden from the public,” said Milenovic.

The award for the best young investigative reporter went to journalists Snezna Djuric and Novak Grujic from the news site Whistle for their ‘Municipal Radar’ series, while RTV Vojvodina journalist Darko Sper scooped the second prize for his story about the trial of a banned neo-Nazi organisation called the National Formation.

BIRN Albania Investigation Wins EU Award

The investigation Albania’s Judges Wealth Escapes Scrutiny, by journalist Leonard Bakillari has won the first prize in the EU Investigative Journalism Award 2015 for Albania.

Bakillari was awarded first prize for his article on corruption in the judiciary system, published in reporter.al and BalkanInsight.com – BIRN online publications.

Second prize went to Ornela Liperi of economic magazine “Monitor” for her article on the financial crisis and debt situation of business companies in Albania. The award for best article by young investigative journalist was given to Habjon Hasani for his TV report on the petroleum concession and its effects on economy,

“Freedom of expression and freedom of the media implies a commitment to democracy, good governance and political accountability. These are some of prerequisites for a country to become part of the EU and one of the reasons why each of you play such an important role in creating EU standards,” said Jan Rudolph, Head of Political, Economic and Information Section announcing the EU Investigative Journalism Awards.

Bakillari’s investigation was published as part of BIRN Albania’s program on Exposing Corruption in Albania, which is financed by the Open Society Foundation in Albania (OSFA), the Balkan Trust for Democracy (BTD) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

BIRN’s Kosovo War Film Wins US Festival Award

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 LA.

The Unidentified, which names the Serbian officers who ordered attacks on Kosovo villages around the town of Pec/Peja in 1999 and those involved in the cover-up operation to hide the victims’ bodies, was awarded the best short documentary prize at the South East European Film Festival in Los Angeles on Thursday.

Nemanja Babic, the director of the film, told the audience at the Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills that work on the film continued for two years as the production team struggled to persuade all those involved, both perpetrators and victims, to give interviews for the documentary.

“It took us months to convince a lot of people to appear in this documentary. Some of the witnesses first said yes and then they would change their mind once we pressed ‘play’ on the camera,” Babic said.

“This prolonged the whole process of filming, but in the end the work paid off and this prize also inspires us to continue working on this topic,” he added.

The Unidentified takes viewers back to 1999, to the villages of Ljubenic, Cuska, Pavljan and Zahac near Pec/Peja in Kosovo, where Serbian fighters killed more than 118 Albanian civilians. Their bodies were either burned or removed, and some of them were later found in mass graves at the Batajnica police training centre near Belgrade in 2001.

The trial of 11 fighters alleged to have been involved in the killings – 10 of them accused of being direct perpetrators – is still ongoing in Belgrade.

In February 2014, nine of them were sentenced to a total of 106 years in jail but an appeals court annulled the verdict last March, calling it “incomprehensible and contradictory” and sent the case for retrial.

The film had its international premiere at last year’s Sarajevo Film Festival and has been screened at various other festivals and institutes, in Paris, New York, Washington DC, Zagreb, Belgrade, Prizren, Pristina, Tirana, Maribor and Los Angeles.

The Unidentified will also be screened for the first time in Belgrade on May 14 at this year’s BELDOCS film festival.

BIRN Albania Holds Training on Local Gov. and FOI Law

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Albania held a three day training for local journalists from across the country from April 16th to April 19th in the coastal city of Durres.

In the training 12 journalists working as reporters and editors for local news media outlets participated. The training aimed to improve their pitching and reporting skills as well as their understanding of Albania’s Freedom of Information Law.
During the training the journalists were introduced to BIRN Network’s ethical and professional standards.

The training was held as part of BIRN Albania’s initiative to monitor and report on the 61 new municipalities that emerged from the country’s territorial-administrative reform in 2015, as well as key actors of change from civil society and grassroots organization.

The training for local journalist was supported by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

In the next 12-months BIRN Albania in cooperation with the journalists that participated in the training will produce two monitoring reports on the implementation of the Freedom of Information Law from municipalities as well as features, news analysis, and investigations targeting the work of local government elected and appointed officials.

With the help of BIRN editors/trainers the journalists will also produce a series of 36 features on actors of change –individuals, NGOs or grassroots organization – which play a pivotal rule to enhance democracy and civic participation on the local level, empowering communities to hold those in power accountable.

Tenth Edition of BFJE Launched in Vienna

The tenth Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence got underway in Vienna with a multimedia workshop, reporting/writing tips and tailored editorial guidance for 10 new fellows from across the Balkan region.

With the participation of the ERSTE Foundation, Open Society Foundations and BIRN, fellows from Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and Macedonia came together with the Fellowship team to begin work on their in-depth stories.

They received practical tips from Fellowship programme editors, focused on planning, research, reporting and writing, as well as individually tailored advice and workshops on multimedia journalism.

The sessions were led by former Reuters bureau chief for the Balkans Andrew Gray, who was BFJE editor for the previous two years, and his successor as BFJE editor Matt Robinson, who also formerly led the Reuters bureau in Belgrade. Matt will now mentor and support the fellows over the months to come.

The 10 journalists also benefited from a workshop by Romanian photographer Cosmin Bumbut and BFJE alumna Elena Stancu, an EU Press prize nominee in 2015, on the value of multimedia in storytelling.

The fellows now embark on four months of research, reporting and writing, involving trips within Europe, before submitting their final work.