Tag: Albania

The roundtables were held in the cities of Kukes, Shkodra, Burrel, Elbasan, Berat, Fier, Vlora, Gjirokastra, Korca and Tirana, where more than 150 representatives of civil society organisations, minorities and grassroots groups shared their opinions about a list of questions to be posed to local mayoral candidates ahead of the polls.

The questions were generated by in-depth interviews with more 250 community leaders that BIRN Albania conducted in the above mentioned municipalities over the last two months, in order to identify citizens’ concerns about the problems and challenges their area faces.

A shortlisted number of questions will be used to conduct interviews with mayoral candidates ahead of the polls. The interviews will be published on a special page of BIRN Albania’s online publication zgjedhje2015.reporter.al.

The roundtables are part of the project on ‘Accountability in Local Governance through Citizen Participation and Civic Journalism’, supported by the US Embassy in Albania Democracy Small Grants Program.

This project aims to bridge the gap between local voters and mayoral candidates ahead of the 2015 local elections, by strengthening the capacities of CSOs, grassroots organisations, activists and the media in order to identify and stimulate public debate on the key issues facing local communities.

Around 15 journalists and editors from local and national media in Albania participated in the training, part of the project ‘Fostering Democracy Through Investigative Reporting’, which is supported by USAID through Assist Impact. 

The two-day training session served as a guide to reporters on the basic methods and techniques of investigative journalism as well as an overview of public procurement procedures in Albania.

The training was aimed at strengthening the skills of journalists to help them to look closely at systemic issues of conflict of interest, to uncover facts and produce compelling journalism by carrying out data gathering, analysis and document mining.

The journalists who took part in the training will participate in a competition, from which BIRN Albania, through an independent jury, will select six story ideas for investigations on public procurement that will be funded and published with the help of BIRN editors in BIRN’s online publications BalkanInsight.com and Reporter.al.

Eleven representatives from civil society organizations, activists and grassroots groups participated in the event, where they were invited to share their opinion on a list of questions to be posed to local mayor candidates in the municipality of Kukes, Tropoja, Has and Mirdita ahead of the polls.

The questions were generated by in-depth interviews BIRN Albania held in the above mentioned municipalities in the last two months, in order to identify citizens’ concerns about the problems and challenges their area faces.

A shortlisted number of questions will be used to conduct interviews with mayor candidates ahead of the polls. The interviews will be published in a special page of BIRN Albania’s online publication Reporter.al

BIRN Albania will hold in total ten regional roundtables during the months of April, covering the 61 municipalities that emerged from the July 2014 administrative reform.     

The roundtables are part of the project on ‘Accountability in Local Governance through Citizen Participation and Civic Journalism,’ supported by the US Embassy in Albania Democracy Small Grants Program.

This project aims to bridge the gap between local voters and mayoral candidates ahead of the 2015 local elections, by strengthening the capacities of CSOs, grassroots organizations, activists and the media in order to identify and stimulate public debate on the key issues facing local communities.

Introduction:

The 2-day training serves to provide a guide of basic methods and techniques of investigative journalism as well as an overview of the public procurement procedures in Albania. It aims to strengthen the skills and training of mid-level journalists to look closely at systemic issues of conflict of interest, uncover facts and produce compelling journalism by performing data gathering and analysis, document mining.

Who should attend?

The training targets mid-career journalists in Albania.

Workshop objective:

The outcome for participants will be:

1. Improved understanding of the concept and principles of investigative journalism;
2. Improved applied methods and techniques of investigative journalism
3. Improved understanding of Albania’s public procurement process

 Workshop content

Key content for the Investigative Reporting workshop will include: 

• Data-Driven Investigative Stories;
• Computer-Assisted Reporting;
• Investigating Individuals, and organizations;
• Navigating Albania’s FOI Law
• The art of interviewing.
• Understanding the public procurement procedures in Albania

Selection Process

BIRN Albania is seeking 15 successful candidates to attend the investigative journalism training workshop on May 8^th-9^th 2015.

Bursaries:

The journalist part of the training will participate in a competition, from which BIRN Albania through and independent jury will select six story ideas for investigations on public procurement that will be funded and published with the help of BIRN Editors in its online publications BalkanInsight.com and Reporter.al. BIRN Albania will cover travel costs for journalists outside Tirana.

Applications

Applications for this training close on Tuesday, May 5th. Interested candidates must sent a CV and motivation letter to Kristina.Voko@birn.eu.com . Successful candidates will be informed shortly thereafter.

About 25 representatives of civil society organizations and journalists participated in the event at which the findings of the study were presented and debated.

The study is part of BIRN Albania’s programme called ‘Exposing Corruption in Albania’, which is financed by the Open Society Foundation in Albania (OSFA).

The report assessed Albanian media reporting on corruption, as well as its adherence to the guiding principles of journalism which make it possible for news organizations to be an effective tool against corruption.

The objective of the study is to present and interpret a summary of the general characteristics as well as the quality and reliability of the reporting of Albanian media on issues and cases of corruption, based on a set of quantitative indicators, in order to identify possible problems and shortfalls in the implementation of journalistic standards.

The findings of this monitoring initiative are intended to be used as reference material to assist the various local and international actors involved in media development in Albania, local journalists’ unions, as well as reporters and editors, in undertaking projects and activities that could eventually increase both the quantity and the quality of reporting on corruption, impunity and efficiency of anti-corruption initiatives.

To download a copy of the report in Albanian click here.

To download a copy of the report in English click here.

The training was held as part of the “Accountability in Local Governance through Citizen Participation and Civic Journalism” project, supported by the US Embassy in Albania Democracy Small Grants Program.

This project aims to bridge the gap between local voters and mayoral candidates ahead of the 2015 local elections, by strengthening the capacities of CSOs, grassroots organizations, activists and the media in order to identify and stimulate public debate on the key issues facing local communities.

Reporters were trained by two independent experts on the changes that the new administrative reform will bring to the administrative map, on the way new municipalities are organized, and on the impact these changes will have on local governance and democracy.

The journalists also were also presented with information on how the administrative reform will impact on the upcoming electoral contest. 

The ten journalists, representing local media in Albania, were also trained by BIRN editors into identifying important issues for local communities in cooperation with CSOs.

Following the two-day formal training, the local journalists will develop a working plan and carry out at least 30 interviews and open discussions sessions (focus groups) with representatives of grassroots organizations, activists and representatives of relevant groups in each region of the country.

The interviews with community members will aim to identify key issues for each population subgroup in the run-up to the local elections.

It was the third in a series of seven roundtables, part of a programme called ‘Exposing Corruption in Albania’, which is financed by the Open Society Foundation in Albania (OSFA),  the Balkan Trust for Democracy (BTD) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

The project aims to expose corruption cases in seven different sectors: the environment, the judiciary, education, public administration, local government, organised crime and health, by bridging the gap between journalists and CSOs, and by providing a solid basis for collaboration in exposing abuses of power.

About 12 representatives of non-governmental organisations and six journalists discussed different topics of concern regarding education in Albania, with a special focus on corruption and impunity in the judicial system.

The representatives of the NGOs listed a number of topics, ranging from bribery, nepotism and abuse of office in the judicial system, the promotion of judges, the functioning of the High Council of Justice and others.

The topics highlighted by the NGOs will be listed in BIRN Albania’s call for investigative stories in the field of justice.

In this call that closes on October 31, three journalists will be awarded a grant to cover their expenses while doing the investigation and writing the story on issues related to corruption and impunity in education.

Journalists will have about two months to dig deeper and research their ideas, but also will have the opportunity to work with experienced editors as their mentors to guide them through the process of writing to BIRN standards.

More calls for investigative grants will follow, for a total of 21 stories until December 2016. Topics for investigations of future calls will include: Health, Judiciary, Organized Crime, Local Government and Public Administration.
The call only applies to journalists from Albania.

Click for more information about the application procedure, with details in Albanian.