A training for journalists participating in the region-wide BICCED project kicked off in Belgrade on Thursday.
The event will equip journalists from across the region with the skills needed to write for the Culture Watch Online Magazine and forms part of the third round of the Balkan Initiative for Cultural Cooperation, Exchange and Development, BICCED.
The training sessions will be followed later by on-the-job training from BIRN’s experienced editorial team to help the journalists to produce articles focusing on cultural policy throughout the region, which will be published in the dedicated culture section of BIRN’s Balkan Insight web site – www.balkaninsight.com
Dusica L.I. Cook, BICCED programme manager, said that the main goals of the project are to train journalists to write in analytical manner, and to increase the visibility of cultural problems.
“The aim of the project is to provide a constant supply of objective, balanced and accurate reporting on aspects of cultural policy and other related themes, and provide policymakers in-country and within institutions abroad with a better position to create policies that expedite the region’s European-oriented transition,“ she explained.
<!** Image 3 align=”left” >The two day training programme will focus primarily on developing the journalists’ skill set, and will be led by Ana Petruseva, BIRN Macedonia Director and Gordana Igric, BIRN Regional Network Director who will guide the team through five distinct types of articles, writing style, writing tips, and the use of quotations and sources.
Another session will focus on news and analytical writing, helping the journalists to define the two and look at the structure of such pieces.
BIRN web director Milos Milosavljevic will host a session looking at Online Journalism and the use of social networks, and journalists will have learn the specific skills necessary for writing for the web, methods and techniques to promote their stories and the use of the web for research and collaboration.
The programme will conclude with the commissioning of articles which the journalists will work on in collaboration with their local editors in the weeks to come.
Selected candidates for the third round of the BICCED project are Bojana Karanovic (Banja Luka), Mirza Ajnadzic (Sarajevo), Olivera Nikodinovska and Julija ilijevska (Skopje), Arber Selmani and Donjeta Demolli (Pristina), Fatmira Nikolli and Elsa Demo (Tirana), Dimitrije Bukvic, Mladen Savkovic, Tijana Jovanovic Petrovic (Belgrade), and Branislava Lovre (Novi Sad).
The training is organized within the BIRN’s three-year Balkan Initiative in Cultural Cooperation, Exchange and Development, funded by the Swiss Cultural Programme in the Western Balkans.
