Editors from Western Balkans Visit Newsrooms in Prague, Ljubljana and Maribor

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Editors from Bosnia and Montenegro at Pop TV with Jure Tepina, editor of 24ur.com, left, and Damjan Košec, news programme producer, right

Two groups of editors from five Western Balkans countries visited the newsrooms of leading media outlets in Czechia and Slovenia between 14 and 22 June. The visits took place within SEENPM’s Resilience project.

Three editors from North Macedonia (Srebra Gjorgjijevska, Umno; Vasko Magleshov, BIRN; and Ivona Vasileva, MIM), four from Serbia (Klara Kranjc, RTV; Marina Grnja Klaić, NSSJ; and Ivan Subotić and Jelena Jovović, Fake News Tragač) and one from Kosovo (Bujar Vitija, Gazeta Shneta) spent time at the Czech RESPEKT magazine, the daily Hospodářské noviny, Czech Radio and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 

Editors from Kosovo, North Macedonia and Serbia at Economia publisher with Tomáš Lindner, right, editor with RESPEKT magazine

Seven editors from Bosnia and Montenegro (Anida Sokol, media.ba; Ivana Erić, N1TV; Semir Hambo, Klix; Vanja Stokić, eTrafika; Vesna Rajković Nenadić, MMI; Danijela Lasica, TV Vijesti; and Maja Lalić Burzanović of RTCG) visited Radio Slovenija, Pop TV/24ur.com and the daily Večer in Maribor. They also paid a visit to the Slovene Association of Journalists, learning about the country’s media scene.

Editors from Bosnia and Montenegro in Maribor, Slovenia

The study trips enabled the visiting editors to learn first-hand about different aspects of editorial operations at the host outlets, including editorial decision-making, news production workflow, audience engagement as well as fact-checking practices and editorial responses to disinformation and hate speech.

“The visits were good opportunities for editors from Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia to see top news operations in two EU countries whose recent histories are somewhat comparable to those of their own countries. While media freedoms and journalism standards in Czechia and Slovenia are at a higher level than in the Western Balkans, the visiting editors could relate to and possibly utilise the experiences of their Czech and Slovene colleagues,” said Tihomir Loza, SEENPM director.

A third group of editors (from Turkey, Kosovo and Albania) will visit Warsaw in September.

Editors from Bosnia and Montenegro with Matej Praprotnik, assistant director of Radio Slovenija, third right

Funded by the European Union

The regional program RESILIENCE: Civil society action to reaffirm media freedom and counter disinformation and hateful propaganda in Western Balkans and Turkey’ is implemented with the financial support of the European Union by partner organizations SEENPMAlbanian Media InstituteMediacentar Sarajevo, Kosovo 2.0Montenegrin Media InstituteMacedonian Institute for MediaNovi Sad School of JournalismPeace Institute and Bianet.

This article was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of SEENPM and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.