This year’s Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence will get underway officially at an introductory seminar and training session in Berlin, a week-long event, starting on April 27th. The ten fellows from Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia will be hosted by the Robert Bosch Stiftung one of the partners in the programme.
The fellows will participate in training sessions aimed at giving them a broad understanding of international standards of journalism, with a special focus on the fact checking process and an insight into the research and editorial stages of their projects. They will have the opportunity to exchange information, opinions and views on this year’s theme – ‘Taboo’
In one-on-one sessions with BIRN editors, they will present their ideas and explore their planned research and the aims of their project. After the Seminar, and in the forthcoming months, they will complete their research trips which will take them throughout the region and the EU. The programme will culminate with an awards ceremony in November in Vienna, where the independent selection committee will present awards to the authors of the three winning articles. Each year, all the fellows articles are widely re-published, both locally and internationally.