Tag: Albania

Proposals are accepted for various journalistic formats, including features, in-depth news analysis, investigations and video features. Successful applications will receive an honorary ranging from 15,000 to 120,000 lek (minus personal income tax), depending on the genre and complexity of the reported story, the costs, etc.

There is no aspect of life in Albania that has not been affected by the coronavirus epidemic. We invite journalists to report the stories that are not being reported at the moment: in-depth features on how different communities or individuals are reacting to the crisis, in-depth news analysis with multiple sources explaining what is happening behind the scenes, and research that follows the money the government is spending on its response to the crisis.

Although the COVID-19 epidemic has pushed the earthquake of November 26^th 2019 from newspaper headlines and newsreels, we invite journalists to apply with ideas that report in depth on the response of the authorities and the human angle of the quake that left behind a wave of destruction and affected thousands of people.

Each journalist or group of journalists can submit more than one application. Successful candidates will be notified within  two weeks. Applications will be evaluated continuously on a rolling basis during the period May to June 2020. BIRN Albania will provide successful candidates with editorial support and on-the-job mentoring. The articles will be published in its online publication, Reporter.al.

Successful candidates will have from 15 days to three months to report and write their article, depending on the difficulty of reporting and its complexity. Applicants should take care that their proposals do not overlap with previously published stories on Reporter.al or other media outlets.

All journalists in Albania, employed by other media or freelancers, have the right to apply. This call is financially supported by the Swedish government and the National Endowment for Democracy.

Candidates should submit the online APPLICATION FORM

For an Albanian copy of this call, click here.

For questions or further details, please contact though email at: office.albania@birn.eu.com

The workshop, supported by the British embassy in Tirana through the National Democratic Institute, was attended by 28 journalists and aimed to introduce reporters to best practices on campaign financing and regulation.

The workshop was led by Lolita Cigane, an international expert from Latvia on issues of campaign and political party financing. Cigane has worked on campaign finance reform since 2001, when she was first the project director of a campaign finance monitoring project co-run by Transparency International Latvia and the Soros Foundation Latvia. From 2010-2018 she was a member of Latvia’s parliament.

Cigane presented the Latvian example to the Albanian reporters, explaining how the Baltic country went from an unregulated ‘jungle’ to a well-functioning system of political party campaign financing, and the role that civil society and media played in the process.

The participants then held a brainstorming session for possible investigations into campaign finance issues.

The course was attended by 22 journalism students from the University of Tirana Department of Journalism, the Luigj Gurakuqi University of Shkodra and the Aleksander Xhuvani University in Elbasan.

The training was designed and delivered by Alen Mlatisuma, managing editor of the internet and EuroAsia division at Voice of America.

The course provided the students with hands-on experience of the techniques of shooting, visual storytelling and editing video using mobile phones, as well as information on the key apps, handles and rigs used to stabilise their shots.

The participants were trained to use their mobile phones to shoot video and narrate stories, gaining valuable experience of innovative journalistic techniques.

The training was supported by Swedish International Development Agency, SIDA.

To celebrate Reporter.al’s fifth birthday, BIRN Albania held a reception at the Destil Co-Working Space in Tirana, which was attended by journalists who have contributed to the publication over the past five years, as well as civil society activists and donors.

BIRN Albania Editor-in-Chief Besar Likmeta said that when the publication was launched in 2014 with the aim to create a space to cultivate independent, hard-hitting, investigative journalism, “many were skeptical”.

“Five years on, with more than 250 investigative stories published, which have defined the news agenda, I am glad we have proved the sceptics wrong,” he said.

Since it was established in September 2014, Reporter.al has become a prominent force in investigative journalism in Albania, primarily covering the war against corruption and impunity in the country.

Over the past five years, it has earned a number of awards for its journalists and stories, including the CEI SEEMO Award for Outstanding Merits in Investigative Journalism, the EU Award for Investigative Journalism in Albania, and the Free Speech Award by the South East Europe Coalition of Whistleblower Protection.

“We are proud to have collaborated with dozens of reporters in the four corners of the country, creating an enabling environment for excellence in journalism,” Likmeta said.

The online publication was accompanied one year after its launch by a monthly print version in Albanian and English, distributed to more than 400 institutions in Albania, including foreign embassies, government departments, ministries, media house and civil society organisations.

Also to mark the anniversary, BIRN Albania published a book featuring a collection of more than 250 hard-hitting investigations published on Reporter.al over the last five years.

Reporter.al is part of BIRN Albania’s programme ‘Exposing Corruption in Albania’, supported by the Open Society Foundation in Albania (OSFA), National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and the Balkan Trust for Democracy (BTD).

The database (reporter.al/vetingu), which is updated daily, contains news, analysis and asset evaluation reports of all the judges and prosecutors who have undergo through the vetting process from January 2018 to the present, in the vetting commission and the College of Appeals – the special chamber of the Constitutional Court.

The database compiles daily and in-depth reporting from BIRN Albania journalists focusing on all the three vetting institutions, organised in an easily accessible database, searchable based on the institution or the assessee who has undergone the vetting process.

The database aims to become an historical archive of the vetting process, which will be used now and in the future by journalists, researchers and academics interested to study and report on this key reform for Albania’s justice system.

Apart from the reports on the vetting process, the webpage also includes six studies published by BIRN Albania on the assets declarations of judges and prosecutors at all the levels of the judiciary in Albanian and English.

The database has been funded by the Swedish International Development Agency, SIDA and USAID’s Justice for All Project and the Open Society Foundation in Albania, OSFA.

The call is being held as part of a project entitled ‘Raising Awareness about Accountability and Transparency through Investigative Reporting’, financed by the National Endowment for Democracy.

The project aims to boost the fight against the culture of impunity in Albania through investigative journalism, bridging the gap between civil society organisations and journalists, building their capacities and creating common ground for joint action in exposing corruption cases in the country.

Three journalists will be awarded grants to cover their expenses while conducting investigations and writing their stories on the education system in Albania.

The journalists will have around three months to dig deeper and research their ideas, and will also have the opportunity to work with experienced editors as mentors to guide them through the process of writing in accordance with BIRN’s standards.

The call only applies to journalists from Albania and closes on November 10, 2019.

Click here for more information (in Albanian) about the application procedure.

Click here to download the application form (in Albanian).

The event was held as part of the project “Raising Awareness about Accountability and Transparency through Investigative Reporting”, financed by the National Endowment for Democracy.

The project aims to boost the fight against the culture of impunity in Albania through investigative journalism, bridging the gap between civil society organisations and journalists, building their capacities and creating common ground for their joint action in exposing corruption cases in the country.

Rigels Xhemollari, the executive director of Civic Resistance, an organisation working to improve the quality of higher education in Albania, moderated the roundtable.

At the roundtable, participants suggested a number of key topics worth investigating.

They ranged from public-private partnerships for the construction of news schools to poor investments made in the infrastructure of university dormitories, the management of university dorms, students IDs and benefits, the quality of higher educational publications, elections to student councils, the education budget, the curricula for pre-college education, teacher recruitment, segregated schools, the quality of schools texts, school infrastructure, teacher transportation and other topics.

The goal of the roundtable was to draw attention to an upcoming call for grant proposals to fund investigative reporting on education.

BIRN Albania will make the call in the near future. Three journalists will be selected by an independent jury and then mentored by BIRN editors for three months, as they produce hard-hitting investigative reports on this important topic.