Category: Uncategorized

The program is designed to contribute to the reduction of tension in multiethnic communities and develop objective media reporting through media training that both develops journalistic skills and allows local journalists to develop a better understanding of political and social context of the area.

The first activity in the programme was a five day ‘in – house’ training session in “Vranjske” – an independent weekly in Serbia’s southern city of Vranje. A group of experienced trainers worked hands on with journalists, editors and technical staff, helping them to prepare one weekly edition of the newspaper. The trainers tackled important issues such as respect for the highest professional standards, making reporting more  relevant to the readership, improving editorial policy and procedures and the market positioning of the newspaper.

This training was the first of many – during the first year of the programme there will be three similar events followed by the publishing of four supplements of Vranjske, aiming to provide in-depth reporting of important issues in this region of Southern Serbia.

Within the wider scope of the programme for media and journalists in Southern Serbia, in addition to implementing basic and advanced training and editorial mentoring for journalists, BIRN will produce high quality coverage on political and social developments in Serbia’s southern province, organise web journalism workshops and hold a series of round table discussions.

 The “Building Public Awareness in Multiethnic Areas” programme was launched on December 10, 2009 and will run until mid 2011 and is supported by the UK Government’s Conflict Prevention Pool.
 

The event gathered eight journalists who work for print and electronic media from Presevo, Bujanovac, Novi Pazar, Tutin and Raska.

The first session at the OCSE mission was focused on general issues: journalists were introduced to the basics of international law standards and practice in the context of war crimes prosecutions trials in Serbia over the last decade.

Following this, Matthias Hellmann from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia office in Belgrade presented the work of The Hague tribunal and Dusan Ignjatovic from the National office for cooperation with the tribunal presented the work of this Serbian institution.

“It was substantively important for us to hear first hand how some institutions work,” said Baki Rexhepi from TV Spektri in Bujanovac.

On the second day, participants were taken to the District court, Chamber for war crimes, where they had meetings with the president of the court, representatives of the prosecutor’s office and followed current, ongoing trials.

“Being in the court was crucial for this study tour,” said journalist Nikola Lazic from Bujanovac.

On the third and final day, participants followed the morning session in the court and in the afternoon session they had opportunity to meet colleagues from Belgrade-based media.

Aleksandar Roknic from the Danas daily introduced them to techniques of court reporting. Milos Milic, B92 editor, gave a presentation on The Hague tribunal and the role of the media who report from there while Misa Stojiljkovic explained the techniques of interviewing the victims.