Tag: Serbia

The readers will have the opportunity to enjoy Belgrade Insight articles, stay informed on the latest political and business news, browse through the city’s cultural and arts guide and read about the most interesting events in the countries of the region.
 
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24 journalists from South Serbia, the Sandzak region, Vojvodina, Kosovo and Montenegro participated in the discussion, which is almost one third of the total number of journalists who passed through BIRN Serbia’s training programme.

The evaluation meeting with journalists from the BIRN Serbia network is part of the overall review of project results.
This is an ongoing initiative which should be completed by mid June, and includes, besides journalists, all the key participants in implementing the Minority Media Training and Reporting Project as well as its beneficiaries such as editors from the Serbian media, Balkan Insight subscribers and other relevant stakeholders.

The meeting, organised at Belgrade’s Media Centre, was moderated by Mr. Danko Cosic of ProConcept, (www.proconcept.org.yu ) who developed the methodology for the evaluation of entire project.

The Minority Media Training and Reporting Project, generously supported by the British Embassy in Belgrade since 2005, aims to improve standards of journalism in areas with substantial minority populations and to improve understanding of minority issues among the mainstream population and decision makers, thereby challenging the current mood of suspicion and misunderstanding.
In course of the last three years, 84 journalists have passed through the primary level training while 76 of them went through the advanced level on job mentoring. 159 articles and 11 investigations were produced and published in Balkan Insight (www.balkaninsight.com) as a result of the training activities and 11 public debates on the most pressing social and political topics were held in Belgrade and targeted areas.
The final report of the evaluation will assess the activities and results in the past three years and provide BIRN with ideas for future development.

The event was separated into two sessions. The first focused on the legal framework, the obligations of the media in campaigns and the use of different kind of election polls.

Rade Veljanovski, a professor from Belgrade’s Faculty of Political Science gave a wide overlook of the actual conditions in Serbia and introduced participants to best European practice. He stressed that the situation in the Serbian media is not appropriately regulated because of the lack of good legislative and the absence of professional independent organisations.

Djordje Vukovic, a researcher from election monitoring body, CESID explained the difference between professionally-implemented research and false election polls whose authors are dubious. He said journalists must be aware when getting results of election polls from an undefined source.

Zoran Stanojevic from RTS presented his experience from covering the election campaigns. He compared Serbian media coverage practice with US-based media and said that here we do not have a thematic approach which is crucial in western media. He said that there was no space for real debates of the main political players because they did not show interest in taking part in that kind of programme.

Slobodan Basic and Nadezda Milenkovic gave the participants a possibility to look behind the campaign’s main stage and to understand how electoral teams work. They explained the point of view of party members and their chancellors and the way of formulating main ideas for the campaign. Basic and Milenkovic explained the different strategies and the importance of marketing and public relations in the campaigns in Serbia.

Amela Bajrovic, Nikola Lazic, Dragan Gmizic and Isak Vorgucic will strengthen BIRN’s network of contributors and give our readers a direct insight into the latest developments in these regions. Our new correspondents are trained and supported through the Minority Media Training and Reporting Project.

Since 2005 more than 50 journalists from Serbia have attended the training programme organized by BIRN Serbia, and sponsored by the British Embassy in Belgrade and the Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy. The project’s aim is to strengthen the capacity of local journalists and support their work.

The Netherlands Embassy has given generous support to BIRN’s development as an independent local civil society initiative, and helped its regional activities throughout 2006-07.
 
During the past two years BIRN has engaged in extensive training activities, building teams of investigative journalists throughout the Balkans and training them in different aspects of their trade.  It has created a network of over 200 local contributors and editors in nine countries across the region.

Since the beginning of the inter-governmental “Decade of Roma Inclusion” programme in 2005, a number of measures have been taken to improve conditions for this disadvantaged community. But there is much more to be done before the current patterns are changed. Frequent attacks on Roma people and their settlements, exclusion from society, the huge obstacles in the way of breaking the cycle of poverty and ways of overcoming cultural barriers will be some of topics that we will tackle.
 
“Roma media are important, because they influence the emancipation of the Roma, the development of their culture and traditions. Roma media also play a very important role in the development of inter-ethnic relations between Roma and other nations”, said Orhan Galjus, journalist from Amsterdam and activist at the “Media and minorities in SEE” conference.
 
Galjus will be a guest trainer at the Belgrade event.
 
The trainees’ reports will be published in English, Serbian and Roma languages early November.
 
These training and publishing activities will be implemented under the framework of the “Minority Media Training and Reporting Project”, supported by the British Embassy in Belgrade and the OSCE mission in Serbia.

The group comprised journalists who, having completed primary level training, have become regular BIRN contributors from Kosovo. In addition, two journalists were trained for the first time in news analyses and feature writing. They will begin work with other colleagues on articles dealing with issues concerning minority communities in Kosovo.

The training was delivered by Aleksandar Vasovic, BIRN Serbia editor, and Tim Judah, British journalist and expert on the Balkans. Over three days, Vasovic led a discussion on the differences in approach to reporting on Kosovo by journalists in the disputed territory, Belgrade and abroad, and looked at different ways of making a local story interesting and understandable to international readers.

Judah then held an editorial session with journalists; talking about how to put events in wider context, give local stories a broader perspective, about sources in the international community and new topics emerging in Kosovo.

Special attention was devoted to the question of ethical dilemmas raised by trainees, such as a reluctance to tackle topics that are not in the interest of their communities and the boundaries of professionalism.

Both Vasovic and Judah participated in a session devoted to outlining stories that will be published in August in a special edition of Balkan Insight.

The British Embassy in Belgrade and National Endowment for Democracy, NED, sponsored the event as part of a three-year journalism-training project.

The network in Serbia includes young and middle-aged journalists from a range of ethnic backgrounds, who work for local media outlets and national media in Belgrade.

As part of its efforts to build a truly nationwide network of journalists, BIRN Serbia is to launch a training course in East Serbia on June 9. Participants will be taught international reporting standards, news analyses and feature writing.

This training session will be followed by a special issue of Balkan Insight devoted to the socio-political situation in East Serbia, an underdeveloped area, blighted by a bad economy, unsuccessful privatization and ecological problems.

This session, sponsored by the British Embassy in Belgrade as part of a three- year journalism training project, will provide a group of five journalists with invaluable opportunities to adopt BIRN’s professional standards and become permanent members of its netw