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Her professional path has been very interesting: from gaining a BA degree in journalism and an MA in Economic Analysis and Politics to working as an economic journalist, a deputy general manager at Business Info Group, publisher of the business news outlet Nova ekonomija, among other things, and now Head of Strategic Planning at BIRN Ltd.

Let’s meet her!

1. You graduated from the Department of Journalism and Communicology at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade. After that, you were awarded an MA in Economic Analysis and Politics at the Faculty of Economics. What attracted you to this economic aspect?

Money makes the world go round. Once you understand where the money flows and where it comes from, it’s easier to grasp how processes in society work.

Economic journalism is challenging because you often need to break down complex and sometimes boring topics, and make them interesting and easy to understand for everyone, both regular readers and fellow journalists. To do that well, you need to keep learning and stay up to date.

That said, covering economic topics is also a privilege. I’ve had the chance to meet people whose business ideas are changing the world, who are not only feeding their own families but providing for hundreds of others. These are the people whose decisions can shape your future, your community, and even the world.

That said, I’m not here to back big corporations or wealthy capital owners. I believe in business models that give workers both responsibilities and rights. Workers should have a chance to use their creativity, ideas and knowledge to make new products and earn more and also have more time for their personal lives. I support an egalitarian-liberal approach where the state and companies support vulnerable groups – those who are sick, disabled, or unable to work fully due to life’s circumstances.

2. Can you explain what BIRN Ltd is?

BIRN Ltd is the commercial side of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN). It was founded in 2007 to develop and manage commercial products that support BIRN’s editorial and campaigning work, like the Balkan Insight news portal.

BIRN Ltd handles the paid services that Balkan Insight offers, which fall into two main areas. First, there’s the editorial content, which includes analysis, commentary, interviews, and profiles on the latest political and business developments in the region. Then there’s the consultancy side, where our analysts track and analyze political, economic, security, social and human rights issues in the region, including the influence of foreign powers. One of our key consultancy products is the Western Balkans Stability Monitor, which has been running since December 2018.

3. Who are the users and subscribers to these paid services and consultancy products?

Our subscribers are all personally or professionally connected to the Balkans – students, diplomats, the donor community, the corporate sector, top universities around the world, and more.

BIRN Consultancy offers analysis, advice, and corporate investigation services with a focus on the Balkans.

We give our clients detailed insights into political, security and economic developments across the region, whether for the whole of the Balkans or specific countries. Everything is customized to their needs. With a network of analysts embedded throughout the region, we’re always plugged into the latest information at its source. This means we don’t just explain what’s happening; we also help our clients understand the risks and opportunities ahead.

4. What are your favourite – and least favourite – parts of being Head of Strategic Planning at BIRN Ltd?

One of the biggest challenges is figuring out how to ensure the long-term sustainability of our organisation and to invest more in journalism. Every day brings new uncertainties, especially with things like the rise of “foreign agent” laws across Europe. Authoritarian governments use these to discredit independent media; they’re a real threat to democracy, media freedom and civil society.

On the flip side, it’s a privilege to promote and support top-notch investigative and analytical journalism in the Balkans. Just mentioning BIRN is enough to make people stand up and recognise its importance. If you want to learn more about the Balkans, BIRN is the first choice for anyone, no matter where they are in the world.

5. What are the plans for BIRN Ltd?

The premium service we offer is helping us make Balkan Insight more sustainable. But we’re not stopping there, we want to keep growing. We plan to expand our consultancy offerings, improve our subscription system and grow our reader base. We also want to introduce more consultancy products to better meet the needs of our clients all over the world and provide a stable income for our work.

This call invites journalists and editors from Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Serbia) to apply and take part in the exchange in Montenegro. The programme offers a unique opportunity for participants to familiarize themselves with different newsrooms across the region, enabling them to acquire new skills and expertise in investigative news production while fostering knowledge exchange among their peers.

ABOUT THE EXCHANGE PROGRAMME

The One-Month Regional Exchange Programme is a capacity-building opportunity for media, editors and journalists from the Western Balkans to facilitate the production of quality news and an investigative production environment, enabling both parties to engage in knowledge exchange, comprehensive mentoring and cross-border approaches.

WHO IS IT DESIGNED FOR?

The exchange programme is designed for both media and editors/journalists from the Western Balkan countries. It creates opportunities for the host media to share their knowledge with colleagues from other media in the Western Balkan region. It provides an opportunity for editors/journalists to spend one month immersed in a host media distinct from their country of origin while at the same time working together.

WHO CAN APPLY?

Journalists/editors from five (5) Western Balkan countries may apply to this call.

To apply for the programme, they must meet the following criteria:

1. Be a resident of one of the five Western Balkans countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Serbia).
2. Have at least three years track record of working in journalism sector.
3. Demonstrate a strong motivation and commitment to participation in the exchange programme.
4. Availability to spend one month in a host media located in Montenegro, distinct from her/his country of residence, in 2025.

Within this call, one (1) journalist/editor will be selected in accordance with the predefined selection criteria and will have an opportunity to work with the Centar za istraživačko novinarstvo Crne Gore (Centre for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro – CIN CG), which is the host media for this call.

BENEFITS AND LOGISTICS FOR THE JOURNALISTS/EDITORS

BIRN will cover the travel, accommodation, and bursary costs for the selected journalists/editors.

HOW TO APPLY?

Please share your interest through filling in the application form in English language by January 16 (Thursday).

More information about the call can be found here.

Media representatives and civil society and international organisations told BIRN’s Digital Rights Annual Conference in Tirana, Albania, that worsening digital rights violations in the Balkans were having “profound effects” on people’s lives.

“The report shows that digital rights violations have profound effects on everyday lives, only amplifying already existing human rights issues and barriers. While compiling it, we have attempted to paint the current picture but also to forecast future trends,” Ena Bavcic, BIRN’s Digital Rights Research Lead said.

Despite the challenges, Bavcic said there is still hope for a safe internet.

“Challenges are numerous but there is some hope and we hope this report will be used to cast light on steps that need to be taken to improve online safety for everyone,” Bavcic said, referencing BIRN’s Digital Rights Violations Annual Report 2023-2024, published on Wednesday.

Bavcic highlighted that the main digital rights violations in the region over the past year include disinformation, hate speech and cyber attacks. She also underlined the malicious use of AI.

“Most of the cases [in the report], such as computer fraud, phishing, manipulated videos impersonating others and other similar digital rights violations were ‘improved’ by AI. AI is here to stay,” Bavcic said.

She predicted that the malicious use of AI will preoccupy the digital agenda in the coming years, as it is used increasingly to target politicians, political opponents and journalists and to spread hate speech and disinformation. Deep-fake videos are increasingly used against girls, women and LGBTQ+ individuals.

Speakers at the event highlighted legislative changes that have worsened digital rights violations.

“There is a lack of public debate and a lack of information about stakeholders [when making new laws] and so we wake up to a law that was passed at 5am by the majority in parliament. Women and the LGBTQ+ community are targeted specifically under these laws,” Gurkan Ozturan, Media Freedom Monitoring Officer at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedoms and Turkey Rapporteur for Freedom House, said.

Ozturan recalled various adverse legal changes in Turkey and recent plans to adopt a Russian-style law labelling foreign-funded organisations as “foreign agents”. Similar laws have either been introduced or proposed by lawmakers in Hungary and Bosnia’s Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity.

Speakers and participants at the event stressed the serious effects of digital rights violations on vulnerable groups, such as girls, women and LGBTQ+ groups.

One of the speakers, Xheni Karaj, director of Albania’s Aleanca, an NGO advocating for LGBTQ+ people, has faced serious threats online due to her activism and media appearances. “We don’t realise the damage these messages impose on activists and a whole movement, when the whole country sees you as a ‘public enemy’ just because of misinformation,” Karaj said.

Karaj recalled getting death threats after a media appearance in which she spoke about the UK registering newborn babies on passports under Parent 1 and Parent 2, after which she said a similar system could be applied in Albania. However, the media twisted her statement and added a headline accusing Karaj of wanting to remove the traditional family from Albanian legislation entirely.

“Many media outlets … started to reproduce this news, magnifying the disinformation that this news represented. I wasn’t following the media at the time but I was receiving a lot of death threat messages on my social media without even knowing why,” Karaj added.

The Digital Rights Violations Annual Report 2023-2024 was co-funded by the European Union.

A day before the event, a documentary, Body of Shame, exploring the sexual abuse and harassment of women in Albania, was screened.

The two-day conference, organised by Uzbekistan’s Anhor.uz in collaboration with BIRN, n-ost from Germany and JAM News from Georgia, brings together journalists, researchers and experts from the Western Balkans, Caucasus and Central Asia.

N-ost’s Jakob Mardell, the editorial coordinator of the Spheres of Influence Uncovered project, said in his opening address that by “encouraging cross-border, data-driven research”, and by empowering collaboration among local journalists, the conference and the overall project aim to shed light on the increased competition in the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia between China, Russia and the EU.

The Spheres of Influence Uncovered project, of which this conference is a part, has been going on for two years already.

In the ancient city of Samarkand, one of the focal points along the route of the historic “silk road”, experts and researchers at the conference will discuss the current state of play, the flow of money, as well as the local economic, political and cultural impact from these geopolitical trends.

Several panels aim to cover the ways in which the three competing players aim to increase their soft power.

Journalists from the seven selected countries, Georgia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Tajikistan and the host country of Uzbekistan – who have been researching FDI flows, trade and green energy projects – will present the data they collected so far, introducing it as a valuable resource to the wider community.

They will also make connections and discuss potential future collaborations in producing further data-driven journalistic stories.

Speaking on the first day, BIRN’s former Head of Programmes, Aida Ajanovic, presented the collaborative initiative, spearheaded by BIRN, to build a database of EU, Russia and Chinese investments in the seven countries which are part of the project.

Underlying the importance of a database, which would greatly help the wider understanding and future research into this topic, Ajanovic said that despite the challenges in collecting the data base, “BIRN will remain committed to building and launching it” for a wider audience.

The Spheres of Influence Uncovered project, among other things, aims to identify Russian, Chinese and EU economic activities in Eurasia, expose their consequences and downsides and inform the general public about its findings.

As part of this effort, the participating journalists will continue to produce country-based and cross-border reports.

The project is funded by Germany’s Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Daniel Fieller, Deputy Head of Mission at the British embassy in North Macedonia, opened the event  in Skopje on November 13, thanking the media outlets that the Western Balkans Media for Change project supports.

“You serve your societies by amplifying the voices of those unheard in the region,” he said, adding that BIRN has been his main source of information since living in the region and that it has been a privilege to work with organisations such as BIRN and Thomson.

Milka Domanovic, BIRN’s Regional Director, said she was proud that the project team has been able to adapt to different circumstances over the years and listen carefully to the needs of the people BIRN is supporting. “This project also created very stable connections between media professionals in the region,” she said.

Larisa Halilovic, Team Leader at the Western Balkans Media for Change project, emphasized that the project currently works with over 100 media professionals in the region.

After the opening, journalists joined a workshop on the wellbeing of journalists led by Emma Thomasson from The Self-Investigation Foundation.

Through interaction with each other and different exercises, they were motivated to think about workplace factors that lead to burnout, which include unfair treatment at work, unmanageable workloads, unreasonable time pressure, lack of role clarity and lack of communication and support from the manager. The workshop also covered tools for building resilience in the workplace and conflict management.

On November 14, participants heard about the main findings of the Global Index on Responsible AI in Southeastern Europe (GIRAI), a multidimensional tool measuring progress towards responsible use of AI in 138 countries and jurisdictions.

Ivana Jeremic, BIRN’s Digital Rights Programme Content Lead and GIRAI Southeast Europe Research Team Leader, explained that the Balkan region is an emerging AI governance hub with varied progress levels across different countries. “Most countries in the region lack comprehensive policies for AI safety, accuracy and reliability,” Jeremic said.

Journalists also learned about using AI in newsrooms with Damjan Dano, a Tech entrepreneur. The workshop covered AI tools and solutions that journalists can implement in their media outlets, as well as an evaluation of those tools and a discussion on AI’s limitations and the role of human oversight. The participants also discussed ethical challenges and legal and copyright issues when using AI for content creation.

Finally, at the event closure, participants heard directly about achievements from the media outlets that were supported through the project and about the change and impact achieved with BIRN and Thomson assistance and mentorship, from Armela Toska from Monitor (Albania), Amna Mehmedspahic from Radio Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Maja Ravanska from Lice v lice (North Macedonia), Rina Gurgule from Telegrafi (Kosovo), Dusan Cicmil from Vijesti (Montenegro) and Aleksandar Minic from TV Forum (Serbia).