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Balkan Human Rights and Media Development Programme - The Balkans
RegionGlobal, Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia
Programme Summary
The Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) runs a training programme that is designed to support long-term democracy and conflict resolution in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia, and Montenegro. The programme involves regional research, reporting and dialogue projects, local syndication, on-the-job training, and institution-building with local media, media institutes and journalism faculties. The goal is to support regional and European integration by improving the professionalism and responsibility of the media in the region; supporting journalists, editors and media organisations; and strengthening relationships with human rights activists and other democratic voices.
Communication Strategies
IWPR's work to strengthen the media sector in the Balkans is based on strategies including partnership, face-to-face training, publication (online and in printed format), and the creation of cross-ethnic dialogue. Central programme activities include:
- Practical, on-the-job training: offering training the trainers sessions, workshops, and editorial collaboration that involves evaluation and feedback throughout the process of story planning, research, writing, and production.
- Cross-regional investigative reports: supporting local journalists and media to produce in-depth cross-regional reporting and investigative work. Articles are edited in cooperation between IWPR and the local media partners, and published simultaneously in the local press and on the IWPR site.
- Publication in the Balkan Crisis Report (BCR): producing this twice-weekly electronic publication, which averages 5 articles per issue and is disseminated in English, Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian, and Albanian on the IWPR site. BCR is heavily focussed on issues of war crimes, democratisation, and regional concern. It serves as the motivator and reward for participation in IWPR's training and editing process.
- Re-publication: IWPR news analysis and investigative reports are widely republished (often more than once) by the local media within the region.
- Workshops and roundtables: conducting monthly discussions that provide planning, discussion, debate, feedback and evaluation on investigative reports. Project coordinators, project participants, representatives of NGOs and media partners, and selected regional specialists share experiences, exchange training lessons, assess impact, and strategise about disseminating the reports.
- Media monitoring: supports analytical monitoring of local media output through "human rights report cards" produced by local human rights NGOs on coverage of human rights issues and, in Macedonia, on assessing levels of hate-speech and other irresponsible reporting.
- Tribunal reporting: provides a weekly analytical review by the leading analysts on the court, plus expert international comment, regular reports on war-crimes, related issues from the field, and "courtside" reports from the ongoing cases in The Hague. Click here to access the Tribunal Update.
- Macedonian dialogue: fosters dialogue between Macedonians and Albanians through responsible media reporting. Activities include: dialogue and project planning workshops; media monitoring through the founding of an independent Macedonian Media Advisory Council; on-the-job and workshop-based training; cross-community research projects; online publications; and local syndication.
Development Issues
Conflict, Political Development, Rights, Media.
Partners
SENSE News Agency, the Humanitarian Law Centre, the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, Koha Ditore, Zeri, Danas, Dani, Oslobodjenje, and Nezavisne Novine, Kapital, and Lobi.
Placed on the Communication Initiative site October 29 2003
Last Updated October 29 2003
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