BIRN Hub News and Events

Polish journalist Dariusz Kalan was awarded the first prize for the 2020 Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence, at a ceremony held in Vienna on Thursday. The ceremony – delayed because of the pandemic – celebrated the successful completion of the programme.

BIRN gathered with grantees, mentors, and partners at the final event in Novi Sad from May 18 to May 19th to share the impact, success stories and lessons learned from the “Media for All” project.

This year’s Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence was launched with ten journalists attending an opening seminar in the Austrian capital. The Fellows were chosen from almost 100 applicants from the 14 countries covered by the programme.

Each month, BIRN introduces you to a different member of its team. For May, meet Jelena Veljkovic, investigative journalist at BIRN Serbia.

The new deadline for submitting applications for EU Investigative Journalism Award for 2022 for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia is Friday, 13.5.2022, at 23:59.

Each month, BIRN introduces you to a different member of its team. For April, meet Besar Likmeta, editor-in-chief of BIRN Albania.

BIRN offers a three-month internship programme for students interested in investigative reporting as part of its Investigative Reporting Initiative. If you are a journalism student looking for an opportunity to learn from highly dedicated journalists and editors, you are welcome to apply for this programme.

Investigative stories published from January 1 to December 31, 2021, and related to freedom of expression, rule of law, transparency, abuse of power and fundamental rights, corruption and organised crime are welcome to apply.

BIRN is offering grants to journalists, artists, historians and activists to create projects based on the archives of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and domestic courts in former Yugoslav countries that held war crimes trials.

Each month, BIRN introduces you to members of its team. For March, meet, Albulena Sadiku, Deputy Director and Senior Programme Manager at BIRN Kosovo.

BIRN organized a four-day training in digital rights, “From Personal Security to Surveillance Capitalism”, for journalists, representatives from civil society organizations, CSOs, legal professionals and IT experts, in Herceg Novi, Montenegro.

Aleksandra Bogdani, 42, works as an editor at BIRN Albania. In the past she has been deputy editor-in-chief at Albanian daily newspapers MAPO and Shekulli. Aleksandra was a participant in BIRN’s Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence programme in 2012. Her investigation, Secrets and Lies: Victims of Albanian Communism Denied Closure, was about former political prisoners whose quest for truth and compensation has become entangled in Albania’s murky politics.

Vlad Odobescu, 38, is a reporter at Scena9 a cultural magazine based in Bucharest. He won multiple awards and fellowships, including the first prize of the Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence in 2013 for his story “How to get Ahead in Romanian Politics”, which was about Romania’s anti-corruption agency repeatedly convicted politicians – but people kept on bringing them back.

Tamara Opačić, 35, is editor-in-chief at Nada magazine and a journalist at Novosti weekly in Zagreb, focusing on human rights, social issues and civil society. In 2017, she took part in the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence.

Each month, BIRN introduces you to a different member of its team. For February, meet Milica Stojanović, journalist at Balkan Insight.