Tag: Hub

The new board is composed of Tim Judah, author and Balkan correspondent for the Economist, Wolfgang Petritsch, Permanent Representative of Austria to the OECD, Steve Crawshaw, international advocacy director at Amnesty International and Stefan Lehne, former Austrian diplomat and visiting scholar at the Carnegie Europe in Brussels. They will be joined by a BIRN representative chosen on an annual basis by the Steering Committee of the Hub.

The BIRN Hub Board has responsibility for major decisions related to the Network’s strategy, adopts the Director’s annual report and ensures that Network regulation rules are upheld. It will assist the Regional Network Director in designing programmes and other operational matters as opportunities or needs dictate.

The Steering Committee will be composed of representatives of BIRN members of the Network and the Regional Director and will act as a hands-on operational body to ensure that the Network continues to maintain highest standards.

The changes agreed in November will be reflected next year in changes to the BIRN Hub Statute, as well as in the Network regulation rules. Network members see these changes as marking a milestone in the life of BIRN that will contribute to the organization’s further development and prevent potential conflicts of interest.

 

The project’s overall goal is to raise awareness of transitional justice issues in Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro and so contribute to the process of reconciliation in the region.

A team of journalists will be formed to cover war crime trials and other key issues and their subsequent news, analysis and investigations will be published on Balkan Insight in both English and local languages.

A monthly radio show, Radio Regional Justice Production, will also be produced in local languages using the capacities of BIRN Bosnia’s existing Radio Justice Programme.

The project also includes a TV Regional Justice Production, a TV series comprising six shows, plus a separate TV documentary, which will be produced using the material that the team has collected.

Our expectation is that that this valuable project will have a lasting, positive impact in the region by fostering democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights and a sustainable peace.

 

This is the second edition of the guide, which BIRN has decided to publish in response to the high demand of journalists requiring a guide to investigative journalism, which resulted in all copies of the first edition being quickly distributed.

Digging Deeper offers insight into various databases available in the Balkan region and tips for practitioners, as the most useful elements for all journalists.

This guide is intended for all journalists seeking to improve their investigative skills and will also inspire others to move into the field of investigative journalism.

The Web Fest conference is organised by successful web companies for all those who live with, and work on, the web. At the same time, it is the largest regional event popularising the use of the internet and awarding successful web projects. This year, Web Fest is all about “ENERGIZING-IT-UP” and discovering who is behind the Internet.

The first Web Fest was held in 2007, when a group of internet enthusiasts and technology lovers highlighted the efforts of the daring souls whose successful projects were being launched on the Web. The festival has grown constantly over the years, drawing the attention and participation of authors, artists, businessmen, academics, scientists and even actors. One of its main points of interest is the submission of new and innovative internet projects for award consideration.

The awards are set to be broadcast live at the event’s closing. Submission categories are still being structured but are likely to include awards for projects such as information delivery, business use and e-commerce, personal and creative use and blogging.

WebFest is also an online competition, with the public able to vote for their favourite websites. BIRN is proud to announce that this year its premium website, BalkanInsight.com, will participate in the competition. “Being the Balkans best English language informative website and truly unique in the region sometimes is not enough. It’s a much greater thing if someone else says it instead of me, right? Therefore, we will take the opportunity to invite all of our readers, all those who love Balkan Insight and share it all across social media platforms, to vote for us. It takes just one click to vote and it’s important that we spread the news about the voting option to all our fans, followers and premium subscribers in a timely manner. Voting will start on October 15th,” said BIRN online projects director Miloš Milosavljević.

Balkan Insight is an award-winning Internet edition of the regional Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (www.BIRN.eu.com), which has newsrooms present in nine countries of Southeast Europe. With a reputation as one of the most respected sources of analysis and investigative reporting, BalkanInsight.com is a unique hotspot for those whose focus is on the Balkans – Europe’s most dynamic region.

Balkan Insight is a portal in a niche market and in English, with an international audience. In 2008 it was among the first in the region to introduce 2CheckOut for Premium Subscription (subscription to premium content).

 

SCOOP has decided to fund five of the seven submitted investigative story proposals.

The software contribution will enable BIRN Network Members to more easily carry out their daily reporting, both in the office and on the field, together with easing communication and collaboration.

In this way Microsoft is supporting BIRN’s mission to build and strengthen its interconnected cadre of journalists across the Balkans, probing and analysing key transition issues and the process of European integration for policy-makers and the public at large.

 

Trainers and leading journalists, like Sheila Coronel, Nick Davies, Helena Bengtsson, Paul Radu, Helen Darbishire, Drew Sullivan, Paul Bradshaw, Randall Joyce and more, held sessions during the week-long training course. The main daily topics addressed the fundamentals of investigative reporting, paper trails, investigative interviews and how to investigate organized crime and corruption.

“We are more than pleased to have well-known journalists for trainers and high quality attendees. All of them worked perfectly as a team,” said Jelena Cosic, BIRN Summer School project coordinator.

Under a new format introduced as of this year, participants were divided into groups and on the last day the groups presented the story ideas they had been working on since the beginning of the school. Five of the seven teams gained funding from SCOOP, a Danish organisation for investigative journalists.

The final day saw BIRN regional director Gordana Igric award certificates during a night cruise through the beautiful Kvarner Bay, thereby officially drawing a close to the 2011 Summer School.

 

Fellowship alumni participated in the third annual ERSTE Foundation Community meeting and ideas exchange held in Austria’s famed Tyrolean region.

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Davies, who will lecture at the upcoming BIRN Summer School of Investigative Reporting, has been praised for his work and for standing up against Murdoch’s extremely powerful media machine.

According to fellow BIRN Summer School lecturer Sheila Coronel, Director and Professor of Professional Practice at Colombia University’s Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, “today we are seeing the unraveling of one of the most powerful global media empires.

The phone hacking scandal has had repercussions not just in the UK, but in the US as well, where Murdoch’s Fox News network lords it over the cable channels. US investigators are now looking into possible violations of US law. The FBI has been asked to investigate whether News Corp subsidiaries hacked phones in the US as well. We may well be seeing the end of the Murdoch era.”

Also speaking about the importance and ramifications of this story, another BIRN Summer School lecturer, Paul Bradshaw, insists: “This is a bigger story than MPs’ expenses, because this is about the system itself, not just its abuse. It is bigger than Wikileaks, because that was about truth and this is about change…”

Bradshaw, best known as the publisher of the Online Journalism Blog and a professor of online journalism in the UK, insists that the cards could fall in any number of ways. “Regulation of the press is obviously the area of most concern: the Press Complaints Commission and the press itself have been heading this way for some time now, so they cannot complain if things change.

Government is making reassuring noises in framing their inquiry into regulation around protecting plurality and independence, but there’s also a suggestion that they are seeking to control the BBC further. Whatever press regulation regime we get is likely to be tougher, however, and may well seek to regulate online journalism more consistently too.”

He continues: “Ownership is the other major area being looked at, with talk of a numerical test being used to proactively ensure individual companies do not dominate the media, rather than intervening only when companies merge or are bought – although this plays in sharp contradiction to policy around local TV, for example, which explicitly talks about relaxing media ownership rules.

“Whatever happens, this is the biggest opportunity to reshape the political landscape that the media operate in – both for those who seek to ensure freedom and diversity of speech and for those who would seek to control the press. Both will be fighting hard for their cause,” concluded Bradshaw.