The project focuses on getting more citizens of Western Balkan countries to become engaged with credible sources of information, providing them with narratives that respond to their interests and priorities.
Summary
The Western Balkans Media for Change project is being delivered in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.
It aims to support independent media outlets and individual journalists, as well as to engage with women, young and underrepresented journalists and their networks, to help improve their operational capacities and capabilities as well as their business sustainability and innovation potential. It also aims to increase their audience reach and foster local, regional and thematic collaboration across the Western Balkans.
The project will support the strengthening of resilience to threats to media freedom and better equip media to produce more high-quality, fact-checked, engaging and gender-sensitive content that will reach wider audiences, particularly those susceptible to disinformation.
Donor
UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)
Main activities
- Engaged Citizens Reporting:
- Grant funding (audience engagement and content production support)
- Mentoring support provided for production of audience engagement content.
- Mentorship support for production including cross-border production provided to journalists, teams of journalists, particularly women journalists and young journalists.
- Pioneering Journalism Excellence Program: Learning circles.
- Networking event for media and journalists.
Target groups
Independent media outlets and individual journalists, women, young and underrepresented journalists and their networks from Western Balkan countries.
Main implementer
The British Council
Partners
Thomson Foundation and INTRAC