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Regional Camp in Sarajevo Boosts Journalists’ Skills in Crisis Reporting

Journalists from across the Western Balkans participated in a three-day training course on safe reporting, crisis journalism, and digital security.

From April 28 to 30, a regional journalism camp was held in Sarajevo, focusing on legally safe reporting, crisis journalism and digital security. The three-day training brought together 25 journalists from across the Western Balkans, providing them with essential tools to navigate a complex and increasingly hostile media landscape.

Participants engaged in dynamic hands-on training sessions, expert-led panel discussions and interactive risk assessment exercises. The sessions offered practical knowledge in legally safe reporting, coverage of crises such as protests and elections and strategies to defend themselves against digital surveillance and censorship.

The training was led by three international safety experts, Sharbil Nammour, Russ Draycott and Michael Buddle, in collaboration with the ACOS Alliance.

Sessions focused on risk assessment and building real-world resilience, emphasizing both physical preparedness and digital threat mitigation.

“Our approach is very much hands-on,” Draycott said. “This is real-world training. We’re getting delegates out of their seats, onto the floor, and teaching life-saving medical skills. These experiences prepare journalists for the real problems they face today.”

Journalists in the region frequently face defamation in tabloid and social media, alongside challenges in maintaining both digital and personal safety. The camp addressed these risks through a cross-sectoral approach, drawing on expertise from multiple fields. With such training, journalist are better prepared to find interesting and hard-reaching stories.

“Sometimes these stories bring them in to conflict and even danger and what we are trying to do is to make them understand and have tools to mitigate those dangers and threats against them, whether they are personal, security or digital. Medical training is a great life skill and something that will hopefully make them feel better to cope with anything they deal with,” Draycott added.

One of the highlights was the presentation of the new BIRN report, “Surveillance and Censorship in the Western Balkans.”

The findings, presented by Megi Reçi, BIRN’s Digital Rights Research Lead, paint a troubling picture. The report reveals that governments in the region are increasingly leveraging technology to suppress dissent, censor online content, restrict access to digital platforms and carry out both mass and targeted surveillance. Read more about it here.

The camp was a joint initiative of the EU-funded project “Strengthening Quality News and Independent Journalism in the Western Balkans and Turkey II”, the Open Society Foundation-funded project “Surveillance and Censorship in the Western Balkans”, and the Austrian Development Agency funded-project “Paper Trail for Better Governance IV”. It was organised by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN).

The training programme has been developed in partnership with A Culture of Safety (ACOS) Alliance. ACOS works to embed a culture of safety within journalism, advance safety standards, and help journalists and newsrooms implement the Freelance Journalist Safety Principles through their safety training initiatives and resources.

BIRN’s Sasa Dragojlo to Join Panel on Corruption and Arms Diversion

On April 16, at 2.30 p.m., Transparency International US and Transparency International Defence & Security will launch a new report, “Under the Radar: Corruption’s Role in Fuelling Arms Diversion”.

The report sheds light on the often-overlooked threat of weapons falling into the wrong hands. States are realising that corruption significantly drives arms diversion, which undermines security, fuels violence and weakens military readiness.

Drawing on 400 cases of arms diversion across 70 countries, the report identifies common corruption schemes and uncovers how weak systems can be corrupted to divert weapons.

BIRN journalist Sasa Dragojlo is one of the panelists at this event, having worked as a consultant on this report. Serbia’s arms trade and corruption issues are often topics of his investigations.

“Serbia has a significant role in the global arms trade. Serbian-made weapons have found their place in many battlefields all over the world, including proxy wars,” he says.

“In that regard, for Serbia’s ruling elites, profits are the most important, as is fostering good relationships with powerful governments – mostly Western, but also those considered allies to Western powers.

“When that is the goal, turning a blind eye on corruption, or diversion of arms that end up in the wrong hands, is a small price to pay,” Dragojlo adds.

Other panelists include Colby Goodman, Senior Researcher; Mario Blanco, Project Coordinator, Transparency International Colombia; Kyrre Knutsen, Senior Adviser, Norwegian Ministry of Defence; Ara Marcen Naval, Independent Consultant, and Sarah Detzner, Independent Consultant, Security Sector Reform and Governance.

The panel will discuss the report’s main findings, share other important insights and suggest actionable steps to improve arms transfer risk assessments and strengthen institutional resilience against corruption.

The panelists will also consider the significance of international cooperation in ensuring that arms trade practices align with the objectives of the Arms Trade Treaty, ATT.

This cooperation is essential for promoting transparency and accountability, as well as for reducing the global risks associated with arms diversion.

Romania Faces Hidden Water Crisis, BIRN Investigation Reveals

Rural communities in Western Moldavia, a region of north-eastern Romania, face a growing water crisis, mainly due to depleted groundwater reserves and the poor management of water mains. A BIRN investigation shows that the people impacted attempt to adapt, but resolving this issue requires political solutions.

“The groundwater crisis, which particularly affects people in UW Moldova (a region in eastern Romania), did not emerge out of the blue,” says journalist Adina Florea, the author of the recent investigation published by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) Fellowship program.

“Researchers have been warning for years about falling groundwater levels. But what I’ve seen is that this water crisis is also a crisis of social inequality—the most affected are people in rural areas.”

Drawing on interviews with residents and scientific experts, and supported by a comprehensive analysis of official data, Florea’s investigation presents a sobering reality: climate change is compounding the long-term effects of poor groundwater management and a broader societal failure to recognize water as a finite, vulnerable resource.

Last summer, Florea spent several weeks in over a dozen rural communities across Western Moldavia, documenting the challenges faced by locals.

Her findings reveal stark regional disparities. Nearly half the region’s population is not connected to a centralized water distribution system, relying solely on private wells or springs – more than double the national average of 23 percent. Furthermore, nearly 10 percent of the region’s rural population that relied on aquifers was facing disruptions to supply because their wells were close to drying up.

Strikingly, many of the villages hardest hit by water shortages are located just kilometers away from urban centers where water access is stable, underscoring the deepening social inequality tied to infrastructure and public investment.

Florea presented her findings during a public debate in Bucharest last week, hosted by Fundatia 9, a Romanian nonprofit that supports youth through cultural and educational programs. The event drew significant interest, particularly from attendees eager to understand what solutions might be implemented to combat water insecurity – an issue many rural residents are already trying to adapt to on their own.

In response, Florea emphasized that both central and local authorities must take the lead in developing long-term strategies for more efficient use of existing water resources. These could include rainwater harvesting systems and improved soil protection measures, aimed at enhancing natural groundwater recharge.

Citing expert insights, she also warned that “if extreme climate change causes groundwater levels to drop too far, reversing that trend may become impossible.”

Another critical challenge is water loss through deteriorating infrastructure. Official figures show that around 40 percent of water is lost through leaks and inefficiencies in Romania’s distribution networks – a figure that climbs above 50 percent in Western Moldavia. The causes, Florea noted, include aging pipes in urgent need of replacement and a system originally built for a smaller, less water-dependent population.

BIRN Launches New Digital Freedoms Monitoring Tool

On April 11, BIRN launched a new version of its Digital Freedoms Monitoring Tool to continue monitoring and documenting violations of digital rights across the region.

Since 2024, BIRN has monitored digital rights developments in ten countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Turkey.

To ensure the monitoring framework remains relevant and responsive to evolving digital rights challenges, a new methodology was developed in 2024 that has been implemented from September 2024. This builds on previous monitoring efforts while incorporating emerging digital rights violations, ensuring a comprehensive and systematic approach to documenting abuses in the online space. By continuously tracking incidents, BIRN provides crucial insights into how digital rights abuses evolve over time and how they may influence future policies and regulations.

The methodology groups digital rights violations into seven umbrella categories, applying a human rights-based approach:

Freedom of expression and media
Freedom, pluralism of information and protection from manipulation
Personal data protection and security
Digital civic participation and engagement
Technological access and equity
Threatening behaviour and harmful content
Economic rights and digital asset protection

The methodology reflects BIRN’s commitment to media freedom, rule of law, transparency, transitional justice, internet freedom and victims’ rights. Find out more here: https://monitoring.bird.tools/

The new website was created and maintained with the financial support of the European Union, as part of the Reporting Digital Rights and Freedoms project. Its content is the sole responsibility of BIRN and does not necessarily reflect the views of the EU.

Funding Open to Engage Your Audience: Second Call for Audience-Engaged Journalism Grants

Media outlets from 10 Balkan and Visegrad countries are invited to apply for grants, training, mentoring, and access to BIRN’s innovative audience-engagement digital tool in the second call for Audience-Engaged journalism grants.

This innovative approach places the audience as a direct and active participant in content creation, fostering trust and stronger relationships between media outlets and their communities, ultimately making them more credible and reliable sources of information.

Do you want to engage your audience and build trust within your community while addressing underreported issues? Submit your original story proposal and share details about the community you wish to engage.

Who is eligible to apply?

Media outlets from the following 10 Balkan and Visegrad countries may apply: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Czech Republic, Poland, Serbia and Slovakia.

What are we offering?

Grants for individual stories of up to €4,000.
Grants for cross-border stories of up to €8,000.
Four-day online training on audience engagement.
Mentoring throughout the project.
Access to a digital tool to enhance audience engagement.

After a successful first cycle of grants, in the second cycle BIRN will fund up to six media outlets to strengthen their reporting and investigate underreported issues within diverse communities. Stories focusing on marginalised communities, youth and women are strongly encouraged.

Media outlets will utilise the audience-engagement tool developed by BIRN to crowdsource, gather and analyse data from their communities. Audience-engaged journalism seeks to bridge the gap between newsrooms and their audiences, transforming journalism into a service that directly responds to the needs of the community.

About the project

The Audience-Engaged Journalism Grants are part of the project Media Innovation Europe: Independence Through Sustainability (MIE). This two-year initiative is led by the International Press Institute (IPI) and its consortium partners, The Fix Foundation, BIRN and Thomson Media (TM). The project focuses on building networks, providing consultancy and offering guidance to participating newsrooms.

The first edition of Media Innovation Europe was launched in June 2022 to invigorate the European ecosystem for independent and local journalism. As part of this initiative, media outlets produced a range of audience-engaged stories, some of which you can read here:

How to apply?

To learn more about the grants, click HERE to read the full call for applications. After reviewing the information, follow the link to access the application form.

BIRN will also organise two information sessions, and registration is open:

Information session: 24 April 2025 at 9:00 (CET), register HERE.
Information session: 29 May 2025 at 14:00 (CET), register HERE.

Deadline for application is 18 JUNE 2025.

For further updates, follow BIRN on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.

For clarifications, contact the Project Coordinator: [email protected].

BIRN Journalist Assaulted by Ruling Party Activist in Serbia

BIRN journalist Sasa Dragojlo was assaulted by a member of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party while covering a protest in Belgrade, but police refused to identify the assailant.

Journalists’ associations have called for a proper investigation after a Serbian Progressive Party activist attacked BIRN journalist Sasa Dragojlo while he was reporting on a protest in Belgrade’s Zvezdara district on Sunday.

The attack happened in front of several police officers, who removed the assailant but ignored calls to check his identity.

The incident happened while local residents were demonstrating against Serbian Progressive Party activists who had set up promotional stands outside an open-air market to attract new members to the ruling party. The promotional effort, which came amid ongoing mass protests across Serbia about official corruption and negligence, sparked anger among some locals.

Before the assault, Dragojlo had identified himself as a journalist, which only seemed to provoke the attacker further. The incident was caught on video, recorded by Dragojlo and by other witnesses at the scene.

“This kind of attack would be unacceptable against any citizen, and the police should have responded. But in this case, it’s clear the attack was escalated because I was on duty as a journalist,” Dragojlo said.

“You can clearly hear me identifying myself on the recording. The attacker reacted aggressively, saying, ‘Oh, you’re a journalist, huh?’ before lunging at me,” he added.

Despite presenting his press credentials, Dragojlo’s request for the police to identify the attacker was ignored.

“The officers were more focused on me than on the attacker, which only reinforces the impression that they weren’t just failing to do their job – they were biased,” he said.

The case has been reported to prosecutors through the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia, NUNS. Both NUNS and the Journalists’ Association of Serbia, UNS, condemned the attack and called for those responsible to be held accountable.

“This was an attack on a journalist while on assignment – one who had clearly identified himself,” said Dragana Zarkovic Obradovic, director of BIRN Serbia.

“We’ve reported the incident and are closely watching how the authorities respond, not just to the attack itself, but also to the fact that police officers on the scene failed to identify the attacker. If there’s no proper response, it sends the message that attacks on journalists are acceptable,” she added.

Protests have been continuing in Serbia for several months, sparked by anger and grief about the Novi Sad Railway Station disaster in November, which left 16 people dead. The student-led protest movement has become the biggest challenge to the rule of President Aleksandar Vucic and the Serbian Progressive Party since the party came to power in 2012.

Call for Journalists to Participate in BIRN’s Regional Camp

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) opens a new Call for Applications for the three-day regional camp on legally safe reporting and crisis reporting.

This camp is a joint initiative of the EU-funded project “Strengthening Quality News and Independent Journalism in the Western Balkans and Turkey II” and “Surveillance and Censorship in the Western Balkans”, supported by the Open Society Foundation Western Balkans.

Given the delicate state of democracy in the Western Balkans, it is crucial to possess skills in crisis reporting, which include covering riots, protests and elections. These skills are vital for upholding professional standards and ensuring the safety of journalists. Journalists frequently face defamation in tabloid media and on social media for their professional conduct. They also encounter challenges in maintaining their digital security and safeguarding their work and sources.

This regional training camp is tailored to address these challenges through a multi-sectoral approach, engaging experts from various related fields to impart their knowledge and skills. The training will focus on safety as well as effective techniques for countering attacks and implementing proactive measures. Additionally, by building the capacity of journalists, we ensure they have the knowledge, skills and tools necessary to combat surveillance, censorship, and the misuse of digital technologies.

The goal of the regional training camp is to equip journalists with specialized knowledge that enables them to protect themselves and their workplace from various threats, including physical, digital and psychological attacks. The sessions will be led by a diverse group of trainers and guest speakers, including BIRN staff and distinguished external speakers.

Who can apply?

To apply for the programme, applicants are required to meet the following criteria:

Be a resident of one of the six Western Balkans countries.
Have at least two years of working experience in the journalism sector including freelance journalists from six Western Balkan countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.
Demonstrate strong motivation and a commitment to participate in the training.

BIRN is dedicated to promoting and achieving diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture, so we encourage individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups, and those with disabilities to apply.

How to apply?

Applicants interested in this regional camp should fill in the application form in English by Sunday March 30, 2025.

Selection criteria

Applications will be evaluated as follows:

Selection Criteria	Points
Working Experience: At least two years of experience in journalism and freelance journalism	50 points
Demonstration of strong motivation and commitment to participation in the training	50 points

The 20 highest-rated applicants will be selected.

Language

The training will be held in English.

Location

The training will take place in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The selected participants will receive details about the agenda and accommodation.

Deadline for applications

Sunday, March 30, 2025, 23:59 Central European Time

Dates of the training course

April 28-30, 2025

Remarks

Travel costs and accommodation will be covered by BIRN.

Meet the People Behind BIRN: Aleksa Tesic

Aleksa Tesic has been a journalist at BIRN Serbia for over three years. He mainly covers technology and the misuse of personal data of citizens.

Aleksa graduated in journalism and communications at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade. As one of the youngest members of our network, he feels “a sense of responsibility, respect for the organisation, and a desire to prove myself.

“We, the young members, are here to push the organisation towards innovation and open it up to new trends. On the other hand, we stand on the shoulders of experienced media professionals, and personally, I strive to learn and absorb as much as I can from them”, he says.

He enrolled in journalism largely because of the investigative aspect.

“After my first job in marketing, I was at a crossroads and decided to pursue investigative journalism. Even during my studies, I attended a panel where I listened to my now-colleague from BIRN. His story completely intrigued me at the time – the investigative aspect and the adrenaline that comes with it,” he recalls.

When he started working at BIRN, he wasn’t initially that attracted to the topic of the misuse of personal data of citizens, journalists and activists. But it grew on him.

“This topic was simply assigned to me as part of a project. However, through discussions with my editor, I soon realised how interesting this could be to the public – especially since, at that time, no one in Serbia was specifically covering these issues; the topic was just emerging.

“The more I investigated, the more personally connected I became to these topics. I realised how difficult it is to obtain information, which, in turn, motivated and challenged me to break through. A few months later, my first big discovery came – the encrypted phones for EPS (Serbia’s state electricity company).

“Throughout the process, the most valuable thing for me was learning how to uncover and investigate. The final product, the investigative stories, came as a natural consequence of that learning process, and over time, it became easier,” he says.

Recently, the Novi Sad School of Journalism awarded him the Marina Kovacev Annual Award in the Best Investigative Journalism, Young Journalists Category, for his work in the above-mentioned field.

“For me, this award means recognition from my peers, which I deeply appreciate. Investigative journalists often get so immersed in their next investigation that they forget what they’ve already accomplished – they don’t stop to smell the roses or reflect on their achievements in the constant pursuit of the next big story,” he says.

“This is not just my award – it was given to me for my contributions, but those contributions were made possible with the support of many people: colleagues, sources, experts, institutions… I would love to see more young investigative journalists every year because they are greatly needed, and competition is healthy,” Aleksa adds.

One of the main BIRN programmes is Reporting and Monitoring Human Rights and Freedoms, focusing on Digital Rights. BIRN Serbia often reports about this and about technology in general. Aleksa explains what some of the commonest digital/online scams are, and how to detect them.

“Mostly phishing, Ponzi, and pyramid schemes. For years now, various phishing and Ponzi scams have been spreading via SMS and the internet. And those schemes still thrive in Serbia; some have been running for years, even though it’s common knowledge that they are scams.

“Serbia is not unique in this regard; digital fraud always finds fertile ground in countries that have a weak response to these issues. And Serbia is known to be one of them. The fact that all of this has gone unpunished and unchecked for years speaks volumes about the weakness and negligence of institutions. Since individuals are mostly left to fend for themselves, people need to educate themselves and develop awareness of cybersecurity threats. Digital literacy is often the first step,” he adds.

Digital supervision is sensitive, especially in Serbia, where the government seems oriented towards suppressing critical voices in the country.

“Digital channels and technologies are highly useful tools for this purpose. However, security services should primarily focus on actual threats, which is what citizens pay them for, while the regime should respond to public criticism professionally, civilly, and in accordance with the law. Digital repression and electronic surveillance of activists, students, civil society representatives, and journalists are anything but lawful,” Aleksa continues.

Although technology is the core of his work, he likes to spend his spare time away from it.

“I enjoy visiting galleries, film screenings, going to basketball games, reading classics and exercising. I own a parrot, and when the opportunity arises, I like to make a mess in my apartment with acrylic paint or clay. Lately, I’ve also developed an interest in making sweets and Indian food,” he says.

“One of the ‘downsides’ of investigative journalism is that it’s addictive; it constantly tries to consume a journalist’s time, and the real challenge is resisting that and carving out time for yourself. I once heard a saying along those lines: ‘If journalism is the only thing you know, then you’re not a good journalist,’” he concludes.

BIRN’s Marcus Tanner to Moderate Panel on Croatian War’s Legacy

Panel debate accompanies opening of new art exhibition on the missing from Croatia’s war of independence.

The Croatian embassy in London is organising a panel event, “Where are our loved ones?” on the occasion of a new exhibition, “Behind The Sky: A Tribute to Missing Persons from the Croatian Homeland War”, which will be held on March 25 in London.

The exhibition by independent artist Gordana Špoljar Andrašić honors the memory of victims and missing persons from Croatia’s 1990s war of independence.

Through a combination of portraits, fragile materials and symbolic textures, the works reflect on the tragedy of war, the unresolved fates of the missing persons and the enduring pain of their families.

A panel discussion will be moderated by BIRN editor Marcus Tanner who was The Independent newspaper’s Balkans correspondent from 1988 to 1994. He has worked full-time for Balkan Insight since 2006.

Yale University Press published several of his books on subjects ranging from Ireland and the Celts to Renaissance Hungary and Croatia – Croatia, a Nation Forged in War.

“It’s very exciting to have such a high-level panel, including two Croatian foreign ministers, one past, one present, and the well-known British historian Robin Harris whose new book on Croatia is about to be published. I covered the fall of Vukovar for The Independent and so feel a real attachment to the terrible events that happened there,” Tanner said.

In addition to Robin Harris, historian, author, journalist and advisor to former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the roundtable speakers will be former Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic, current Foreign Minister Gordan Grlic Radman and Ana Filko, from the Croatian Directorate for detained and missing persons.

Croatia is still searching for 1,788 missing and deceased persons from the war in the 1990s whose burial sites remain unknown. Their families live in constant uncertainty, awaiting answers about the fate of their loved ones.

BIRN Invites Journalists to Apply for Grants for Investigative Stories

Journalists covering EU member countries and EU aspiring countries are invited to apply for grants to produce investigations shedding light on critical social, political and economic issues.

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, is calling on journalists who are interested in producing in-depth investigations to apply for grants that will cover the cost of producing investigations but also include mentoring support to develop impactful stories that foster accountability and public awareness.

Who is eligible?

Journalists currently working in or publishing stories covering EU member countries and EU aspiring countries – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine and Kosovo – can apply.

What are we offering?

Selected journalists will receive grants of €1,140 for the production of their investigative stories (The grant lasts a minimum of three and a maximum of six months). The selected journalists will receive mentoring support from BIRN editors/mentors to help them produce their stories.

This call is ongoing – what does that mean?

Twenty grants in total are available and the ongoing call for applications will be closed once they are all distributed. The first deadline after which applications received so far will be evaluated is June 30^th, 2025.

How to apply?

Before applying, click HERE to read the full call for applications. After reviewing the information, follow the link to access the application form. Applicants need to attach two documents in English to the application form: a CV and a signed letter of support from the media outlet where they will publish the story.

About the project

This call for applications is part of the Media Organisations for Stronger Transnational Journalism (MOST ) initiative, which aims to enhance the resilience of non-profit media in reporting on European issues and drive innovation in foreign reporting. The initiative supports media organisations in developing new approaches and strengthening capacity, fostering collaboration and sharing best practices across borders.

MOST brings together seven prominent media organisations to establish a community of practice focused on business transformation and editorial cooperation.

The project is implemented by a consortium comprising: 1) Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), 2) Centro per la Cooperazione Internazionale (CCI/OBCT); 3) El Orden Mundial – EOM, Spain; 4) European Pravda, Ukraine; 5) Kolegium Europy Wschodniej im Jana Nowaka-Jezioranskiego we Wroclawiu – KeW, Poland (New Eastern Europe); 6) Le Courrier des Balkans – Courriers D’Europe et D’Orient – DcB, France; and 7) Stichting the Tactical Technology Collective – TTC, Netherlands.

For clarifications, contact: [email protected].