Uzbek Journalists Eye Balkan Collaboration During BIRN Summer School

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BIRN’s Summer School has inspired two Uzbek journalists to pursue cross-border collaboration with colleagues from the Balkans.

Photo: BIRN/Borislav Visnjic

One result of BIRN’s 14th Summer School of Investigative Reporting may be more cross-border cooperation between journalists from Uzbekistan and the Balkans.

Among the more than 30 participating reporters are Anastasia Galimova and Yuriy Park, thanks to a partnership between BIRN and the Network for Border Crossing Journalism, N-ost, and its Spheres of Influence Uncovered project bringing together journalists from seven countries across Eurasia in covering the impact of international economic cooperation.

“After the lectures, I got even more inspiration to work and investigate,” Galimova said on Day Four of the week-long course in Mlini, near Dubrovnik on Croatia’s Adriatic coast.

“Also it is a good experience to meet many colleagues from different countries because most of the time I work remotely and online. It is a great opportunity for me to talk with so many investigative journalists and hear their experiences and to know what is happening in different parts of the world.”

One notable difference the Uzbek journalists noticed was the level of transparency in other countries.

“We heard during the BIRN summer school that, for example, when a journalist in Sweden asks for some documents, the government gives it to them,” said Park. “It is much harder to get that kind of document in our country. Another problem is the safety of journalists.”

Park said he had been “inspired” by a talk by Russian journalist Elena Kostyuchenko as well as lead trainer Blake Morrison and, from Sweden, the investigative journalists Ali Fegan and Maria Georgieva.

“I see how they treat their job and how it is done on a very high level,” Park said.

Every year, participants in the Summer School have the opportunity to work on investigative, cross-border stories with the support of experienced BIRN editors.

Park and Galimova said they already had some ideas.

“We have already talked with some of our colleagues and shared some ideas,” Galimova told BIRN. “For me, it is crucial to find collaboration outside of the Central Asia region. We have seen here that we have a lot of topics similar to those of the Balkan countries, for example, Chinese investments. We’ve talked with our colleagues and we have found the same patterns.”

Park said he was new to cross-border collaboration.

“We didn’t have any cooperation with colleagues from the Balkans, but as we are developing our ideas we are seeing some connection between Uzbekistan and Balkan and we want to explore it,” he said. “There are many issues that we can only cover through cross-border cooperation so it is a great opportunity and we are looking forward to doing that.”