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Empowering Journalism in the Digital Age

Awarded journalists will have a unique opportunity to collaborate closely with BIRN editors and our specialized digital rights team. As part of the fellowship, you will gain access to BIRN’s comprehensive monitoring database along with other valuable resources to support your investigative work. This collaboration is designed to equip you with the tools and knowledge necessary to delve deep into digital rights issues and produce impactful journalism. Ultimately, your written content, upon editors’ approval,  will be showcased as a long-form investigative piece in one of the BIRN’s channels (including but not limited to Balkan Insight, BIRD, local BIRN websites), offering a platform for amplifying your work with the aim to  inform and engage a wide audience.

What We Offer

• Grants of EUR 1,000 for individual journalists or collaborative teams, intended to support six months of research focused on in-depth storytelling related to digital rights and freedoms.
• On-the-job mentoring from BIRN editors and our Digital Rights Support Team, plus a two-day online training session to hone your investigative skills.
• Networking opportunities with like-minded journalists and tech researchers across the region, building a network of professionals dedicated to safeguarding digital rights.

Who Can Apply?

• Professional journalists and tech researchers, both individuals and teams, from media outlets from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey.
• Previous participants of BIRN’s training are especially encouraged to apply.
• We welcome cross-border team applications to foster regional collaboration.

Application Process

To apply for the Digital Rights and Freedoms Project Fellowship, please use this ECR form to submit your application. Ensure you include:

• A detailed proposal outlining your intended story or investigation, focusing on its relevance, originality, and potential impact.
• Your professional CV, with an emphasis on your past work in journalism or digital rights research.
• A declaration form, affirming the authenticity of the information provided and your commitment to the project’s ethical standards.

BIRN will also organise an information session on 5 November 2024 at 13:00 (CET), and registration is open. Register HERE.

Submission Deadline: November 11, 2024

Selection Criteria

Applications will be evaluated based on:

• Relevance and significance of the proposed story
• Feasibility and originality
• Applicant’s professional qualifications and experience

A committee established by BIRN’s editorial team and an external professional will review the proposals.

Contact Us

For more information, please contact [email protected].

Join us in our mission to defend digital rights and freedoms. Apply now for the second round of Digital Rights and Freedoms Project Fellowship 2024!

The event brought together 15 representatives from state institutions, academia, non-governmental organizations and the media to review the main conclusions.

Open Data and Digitalization in the Western Balkans: The State of Play analyses the availability and digitalization of open data in the Western Balkans, thousands of e-services and maps over 3,000 open data sets.

More than 50 interviews were conducted to explore the capacities and engagement of key stakeholders in these areas. The research also highlights negative trends, such as data leaks, privacy breaches, inadequate responses to cyberattacks and inconsistent policy implementation, which pose challenges to progress.

The event in Skopje, moderated by the national researcher for North Macedonia, German Filkov, highlighted the main conclusions from the report and the research process, while also providing a platform for dialogue on open data and digitalization efforts both within the country and across the region.

The event began with a presentation by Filkov who outlined the research process, key conclusions and takeaways from the report.

This was followed by a panel discussion that included Gordana Dimitrovska Gapic, Open Government Partnership’s National Coordinator, Marijana Janceska from Foundation Metamorphosis and Konstantin Bitrakov, a researcher and teaching assistant at the Faculty of Law at Skopje’s Ss Cyril and Methodius University.

Gapic emphasized the importance of a structured and ongoing involvement of all institutions and stakeholders in the process of opening and utilizing data. She also shared insights into the creation of the national portal, uslugi.gov.mk, highlighting the need for continuous promotion of the platform to ensure its success and wider adoption.

Janceska shared Metamorphosis Foundation’s work on opening data sets and providing mentorship for state institutions and local municipalities.

Konstantin Bitrakov shared his perspective on the need for open data and digitalization, viewed through an academic lens and within the context of the national legal framework.

The final conclusions emphasized the need for the full digitalization of services and the opening of more data sets for citizens in North Macedonia.

It was also noted that a robust system is essential to support these efforts, ensuring the regular maintenance of both the digitalized services and the opened data sets.

The report can be found here.

Stories on the misusage of medications in Skopje’s oncology hospital, political corruption, misuse of public funds and illegal destruction of forestry were selected as the best investigative stories in North Macedonia for 2023.

Irena Mulachka, Miomir Serafinovikj, Snezhana Lupevska Sozen, Aleksandar Metodijev and Suzana Miceva were announced as winners at the 2024 annual EU Investigative Journalism Awards at Europe House in Skopje.

First prize went to Irena Mulachka from Fokus for her investigation into corruption in Skopje’s oncology hospital, where medications were misused to serve the personal interests of staff and management.

Second prize went to Miomir Serafinovikj and Snezhana Lupevska for their story published on an investigative broadcast TV show exposing political corruption and misuse of public funds through family connections.

Third prize went to Aleksandar Metodijev and Suzana Miceva from Nota.mk for their story, which sheds light on illegal logging in Jablanica mountain, involving cross-border criminal activities.

The jury consisted of Konstantin Testorides, Lajla Veselica and Valentin Nesovski.

Konstantin has over 40 years of experience in journalism starting his career with Tanjug News Agency and joining Associated Press in 1992.

Lajla brings over 25 years of working experience including working with The New York Times on the Balkans and as correspondent for Agency France-Press.

Valentin has 25 years of experience in strategic communications and media working in national and international outlets.

Michalis Rokas, Ambassador of the European Union to North Macedonia, gave a speech at the ceremony reconfirming the European Union’s support for investigative journalism in North Macedonia and internationally. He also handed the awards to the winners.

“Who Benefits?’ Inside the EU’s Fight over Scanning for Child Sex Content”, a BIRN investigation, is among 13 stories nominated for the Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for Journalism 2024. The nomination was announced on October 18.

The investigation, by BIRN’S investigative editor Apostolis Fotiadis, journalist Giacomo Zandonini and an associate professor in media and international development at the University of East Anglia, Luděk Stavinoha, was published on Balkan Insight.

It was one of BIRN’s most widely republished investigations, and was cited across Europe, by, among others, Le Monde (France), El Diario (Spain), Solomon (Greece), Die Zeit (Germany), De Groene Amsterdammer (the Netherlands), Netzpolitik (Germany), IrpiMedia (Italy), and Domani (Italy), amongst others. It has also been shortlisted for the European Press Prize 2024.

This investigation uncovers a web of influence in the powerful coalition aligned behind the European Commission’s proposal to scan for child sexual abuse material online, a proposal that experts say puts rights at risk and could introduce new vulnerabilities by undermining encryption.

After BIRN published the investigation, the main political groups of the EU Parliament agreed on the draft law to prevent the dissemination of online child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

Europol’s in-house research and development centre, the Innovation Hub, has already started working towards an AI-powered tool to classify child sexual abuse images and videos.

The winner of the 2024 Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize will be announced on October 23 in the European Parliament in Strasbourg and will receive a prize of €20,000.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese journalist, blogger and anti-corruption activist who reported extensively on organised crime, money laundering, corruption, sale of citizenship and the Maltese government’s links to the Panama Papers. She was murdered in a car bomb explosion on 16 October 2017.

The annual prize rewards outstanding journalism that defends or promotes the core principles and values of the European Union – human rights, freedom, democracy, human dignity, equality, rule of law.

On October 18, Radio Active Zenica, a youth-focused media outlet from Bosnia and Herzegovina, visited Balkans Investigative Reporting Network’s (BIRN) Sarajevo office as part of their regular mentorship activities within the “Western Balkan Media for Change” project.

This project, led by the British Council in partnership with BIRN, Thomson Media, and Intrac, aims to strengthen independent journalism in the region. Ten young journalists had an opportunity to meet BIRN’s team of journalists and senior editors and experience the work of investigative editorials.

Radio Active Zenica is dedicated to empowering young people through workshops on media literacy, journalism ethics, and practical media skills.

The outlet recently launched a youth programme in Zenica, offering participants training in journalism and multimedia content creation. The programme includes mentoring and workshop experience to help young journalists apply their skills in real-world media work.

As part of the Western Balkans Media for Change they received financial support to educate and empower young journalists, engage the local community and foster media literacy and ethical journalism practices, followed by BIRN’s mentorship support, in realization of their project.

As part of their initiative the young journalists engage in study visits to local media outlets, like the one made to BIRN, to exchange ideas and learn about innovative practices in journalism. This initiative not only enhances the participants’ skills but also fosters quality media production and ethical journalism within the local community, helping to combat misinformation and promote media literacy.

“By visiting BIRN, the team of Radio Active Zenica gained insight into the importance of investigative journalism, the process that journalists go through in creating stories and the obstacles they face. The young members of the Radio Active editorial team were intrigued and inspired by the visit and plan to further explore and apply the advice and knowledge they gained during this visit in their continued education and work in journalism,” Ena Causevic, editor at Radio Active Zenica, said.

“Visits like this provide young people who are just starting out in journalism with a glimpse of how diverse approaches can be when creating media content. It also shows them the level of creativity and freedom they can have, and that through the media, they can influence their local community and drive change within it,”  she added.

“Having a chance to work with a group of young and enthusiastic people is truly a blast for me. Their curiosity driven by youthful energy is inspiring for anyone who has a chance to work with them. On the other hand, they are doing a very important work for young people in Zenica, firstly by educating youngsters to report on topics of true importance for their own generations, and then in creating their radio and written reports,” said Azem Kurtic, Radio Active Zenica’ s mentor and Balkan Insight journalist.

In the past five months Azem has provided them with mentorship support as part of the Western Balkan Media for Change project.

The Western Balkan Media for Change project, funded by the UK Government, supports media outlets in the Western Balkans through financial assistance, training, and mentoring.

It focuses on sustainable media practices and amplifies the voices of youth, women, and marginalized groups across the region.

Radio Gorazdevac, a respected local media outlet and current grantee of the “Western Balkans Media for Change” project, celebrated its 25^th anniversary by hosting a media conference.

Gorazdevac may be a small village in southwestern Kosovo but for the past 25 years a local media outlet has been independently putting it on the map of a divided society.

Radio Gorazdevac celebrated its anniversary on October 10 at the local Cultural Centre, transforming the event into a small “media festival,” as its editor-in-chief, Darko Dimitrijevic, humbly but proudly remarked.

The conference drew journalists, NGOs, and speakers from diverse backgrounds, speaking both Albanian and Serbian among others.

BIRN and Radio Gorazdevac are long-term partners in two projects delivered in cooperation with British Council, Intrac and Thomson Media.

The Media 4 All project has significantly improved the station’s reporting quality and internal capacity, particularly by bringing young people onto the team.

Thanks to the Western Balkans Media for Change project, Radio Gorazdevac has expanded into new formats, such as podcasts, and has continued using the Engaged Citizens Reporting tool, provided and developed by BIRN as part of the Media 4 All project, to encourage citizen involvement in reporting. Its “E-reporter” page now invites citizens to report issues in their communities proactively.

Dimitrijevic has been with Radio Gorazdevac since its birth in the aftermath of the Kosovo war in 1999. Since then, he has witnessed the station’s struggle to report in Serbian and bring community stories to light, despite daily challenges.

“I was really surprised by the turnout of more than 80 people in small Gorazdevac, including representatives of the international community. This event is the crowning achievement of our work, and it shows what we’ve accomplished as a small local media outlet in Kosovo,” he said.

Among those who congratulated Radio Gorazdevac was Maja Sever, President of the European Federation of Journalists. In her video message, Sever said: “Only those of us from this region know how successful it is and what it means to survive and work as an independent journalistic radio station for so many years.”

Over time, Radio Gorazdevac has expanded to include a small TV production, and, with the growth of the internet, it has established a strong online presence.

“Many people learn about local events thanks to Radio Gorazdevac. We address the problems citizens face with institutions, and often citizens reach out to us directly to report issues in their daily lives. We’ve earned their trust but the path has not been easy, especially considering the challenging political climate in Kosovo,” Dimitrijevic added.

To celebrate its anniversary, Radio Gorazdevac organised a conference with two panels. The first discussed the role of local media outlets in an era dominated by social media. The second focused on crisis reporting and the safety of journalists, especially given the daily online and physical threats faced by independent journalists in Kosovo.

“What would happen if Radio Gorazdevac didn’t exist, producing news for the local community?” asked one of the panelists, Ardita Zejnullahu, director of the Association of Broadcast Media in Kosovo, AMPEK.

“People would likely turn to social media where misinformation and disinformation are rampant. The average citizen doesn’t fact-check what they see in these spaces. This poses a significant risk, as highly politicised communities form when there are no local media outlets to produce, verify, and deliver credible information,” Zejnullahu noted.

Ana Marija Ivkovic, journalist and editor at Alternativna and a civil activist from Northern Kosovo, highlighted the challenges local media face in reporting crises and obtaining accurate information amidst a sea of misinformation.

“We have a huge responsibility to report on crises, even though we are often not trained for it. We do the best we can,” she said.

The panelists agreed that media outlets are a powerful tool in combating misinformation and disinformation but acknowledged the challenges they face.

“There are only a few media outlets and journalists in Kosovo that can truly be called independent. In my opinion, local media outlets are the bravest when it comes to independent reporting,” said Andjelka Cup, editor-in-chief of Gracanica Online.

The conference also provided an opportunity for Radio Gorazdevac to reflect on its future direction.

“Media 4 All and Western Balkans Media for Change are programmes that have helped us grow and I can already see the direction we’ll evolve in the coming years. This progress is a result of the project funding, training and mentorship we’ve received from BIRN over the years,” Dimitrijevic concluded.

Visar Prebreza, BIRN investigative journalist and a mentor to Radio Goraždevac as part of the Western Balkans Media for Change project, praised the station’s commitment to journalism.

“They have also been proactive in finding media partners to produce regional stories, recognising that many issues in the Balkans are shared and require the collective efforts of all countries to be addressed,” she said.

“I believe the project has contributed to enhancing the radio’s professional and technical capacities, bringing it closer to the public while also enabling it to evolve in line with modern times and competitive media,” Prebreza remarked.

A major cross-border journalism project that identified hundreds of unmarked graves of migrants has won the Impact Award at the annual Investigative Journalism Award for Europe (IJ4EU). 

The Border Graves Investigation, a cross-border project that confirmed over 1,000 unmarked graves of migrants across Europe over the last ten years, included a story by journalist Barbara Matejcic for BIRN about state-linked refugee deaths in Croatia.

The ceremony was held on September 26th at IJ4EU’s annual UNCOVERED Conference, hosted at the iMEdD International Journalism Forum in Athens.

Barbara Matejcic’s investigation, ‘Nomen Nescio: Dying En Route to Europe, Buried Without a Name,’ was published on BIRN’s flagship outlet, Balkan Insight. She worked on it with seven freelance journalists in countries along the European Union’s borders. The team wanted to investigate how these deaths occur, especially when they are the result of the EU border regime.

“For me, it’s important that the research for which we were awarded raises the question of the causes of death at the borders of the European Union,” Matejcic said BIRN.

“People die not because of impassable rivers or mountains, but because of border regimes. If your life is threatened in Afghanistan or Pakistan, you have no other way to claim protection in the European Union than to go on a deadly journey.

“It is also important to me that it is known that the violent behaviour of the police at the borders is directly responsible for some of these deaths, as I showed in my part of the investigation that concerned Croatia and the Croatian police. Professionally, this award is a confirmation that even small research teams of freelancers can win this kind of award in competition with large media houses and significant funds invested in their research.”

An independent jury consisted of Maltese investigative journalist Paul Caruana Galizia, pioneering documentary maker Christopher Hird, deputy director of the Global Investigative Journalism Network Gabriela Manuli, award-winning Kosovo journalist Saranda Ramaj, and media freedom advocate Nik Williams, who co-chairs the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition.

“This project is a perfect example of how to do investigative journalism with boots on the ground, while shining a light on individual stories and humanising victims,” Manuli said.

“What makes it more exemplary, is that it was conducted by a very small cross-border team. Out of the eight reporters, six of them are full-time freelancers, and the other two are affiliated with small newsrooms. And all this significant reporting was done with very little resources, in a period of over six months.”

The jury was unanimous in its decision. The winning teams received cash prizes of €5,000 each.

The award is organised by Investigative Journalism for Europe, a fund that supports cross-border watchdog journalism in and around the European Union.

Prior to her role at BIRN, she focused on cultural development and programming, particularly within projects related to memorialisation, the culture of remembrance and the promotion of human rights. With over ten years of experience, her expertise lies in project development and implementation within post-conflict societies, and transitional
justice processes.

She recently enrolled on a masters degree in Transitional Justice, Human Rights, and the Rule of Law at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.

Let’s meet her.

1. Can you tell us more about yourself and the work you’re currently involved in?

My primary professional interest is transitional justice, particularly in the areas of memorialization, documentation, and the preservation of archives. As a Program Coordinator for the Balkan Transitional Justice (BTJ) program, my work involves overseeing projects that explore the media’s role in the transitional justice process. BTJ focuses on how the media can contribute to building a more informed society by utilising various tools and practices related to transitional justice in the region.

2. You recently enrolled in an academic program at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. How does this academic pursuit relate to your work at BIRN, and in what ways does your current role influence and shape your further education?

I am deeply honoured to have been accepted and awarded a full scholarship for the MAS in Transitional Justice, Human Rights, and the Rule of Law at the prestigious Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. This program is among the few of its kind globally, offering a unique blend of theoretical knowledge and practical, hands-on perspectives on transitional justice practices and international
humanitarian law.

My decision to pursue this academic path has been strongly influenced by my work with BIRN, one of the oldest regional NGOs in the Balkans, which continues to focus on transitional justice in the region. The evolving political landscape and the dynamics of modern armed conflicts highlight the need for a deeper understanding of transitional justice mechanisms together with human rights, and how they are implemented. This
growing complexity has inspired me to pursue academic research in the field.

3. BIRN started an initiative called ‘Reporting House’ to create the first independent, non-profit regional exhibition and community space in the Balkans that brings the comprehensive story of the break-up of the former Yugoslavia and its aftermath to the attention of as many people as possible. How far has BIRN gone regarding this?

In keeping with BIRN’s mission to support professional and independent investigative journalism, Reporting House will focus on the role played by the media during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, both in terms of reporting on war crimes and in fanning the flames of conflict.

The BIRN team has been working on this project for the past 3 years and we gathered more than 500 artefacts, documents and audiovisual materials provided by journalists and other media workers who covered the wars, as well as by local and international institutions and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. All of these will be featured in a permanent exhibition.

The exhibition will provide powerful and moving insight into the crimes that came to characterise the Yugoslav wars – from ethnic cleansing and the military siege of towns and cities, to rape as a tool of war, detention camps, and mass graves. Visitors will learn about the warmongering of media outlets before and during the wars and about the crimes that were uncovered by journalists determined to bear witness. The project also entails a community space that will be open to the public through various initiatives and events related to media and journalism.

4. What would you like to achieve next at BIRN?

What I’m most looking forward to is the opening of the Reporting House in Sarajevo and continuing our work on archive-based projects, such as documenting mass graves in the former Yugoslavia.

5. What are you most proud of about your work in BIRN?

How we manage to turn silence into stories. In a region where the voices of survivors and human rights victims often remain buried, we try to bring their truths to light—whether through investigations or giving voice to those who thought they’d never be heard.