Crossing Divides

Since its launch five years ago, IWPR’s Balkan Crisis Report has undergone a transformation that reflects the immense changes in the region.

The project was initiated amid the embers of genocide in Bosnia, and at the very first moments of fresh war in Kosovo. Harnessing the new potential of the Internet to empower local voices, the project was immediately established as an important innovator in conflict reporting.

Five years on, a former state president is on trial, peaceful political change through democratic elections has become routine, and the European orientation of the entire region is confirmed.

DEBATE AND DEVELOPMENT

Over the course of these momentous events, the report – known in-house as BCR – has developed from an emergency response effort into a significant catalyst for public debate throughout the region.

Front-line reporting has given way to extensive cross border investigative reporting, often in collaboration with local media and nongovernmental organisations, including collaborative research, broadcast tie-ins and widespread regional syndication, and regular public conferences and roundtables. In addition, BCR informs a wide network of international policy, media and academic readers, and serves as the driving force of IWPR’s on-the-job training programme for a new generation of Balkan journalists.

Yet grave problems in the region remain, as does the need for BCR and IWPR’s broader training and reporting work. While western capital has become involved in the Balkan media market, professional quality has not always kept pace with corporate developments.

Especially in some countries, highly emotive yellow journalism continues to drown out other voices.. The rioting in Kosovo in March 2004 was, in part, driven by provocative and unconfirmed reporting – all broadcast at volume. Financial considerations also impede long-term training and in-depth research.

“Over the past five years BCR has offered in-depth analysis and investigations, encouraging many local publications to follow its lead,” says Ljupco Zikov, editor in chief of the Macedonian weekly Kapital. “The lack of important and unbiased information remains one of the crucial problems in our profession.”

BCR’s readers are not, of course, entirely uncritical. At nearly every crisis moment, IWPR can be assured of sharp responses to its reports – most often for failing to support one or another ethnic or political cause adequately.

Professional colleagues also voice their criticisms. “Do we believe that IWPR has always been balanced and 100 per cent accurate?” asks Branko Geroski, editor of the Macedonian daily Dnevnik. “Of course not. But BCR is definitely a valuable tool for every journalist, politician or simply curious-minded person to get a sense of what is going on.”

Local editors have been particularly impressed with BCR’s investigative reports on subjects such as the proliferation of arms in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia, and the problem of human trafficking across the region.

“They have been promoting high standards of investigative journalism – journalism that is not satisfied with official sources, but is searching behind the scene for the facts that someone is trying to hide from the public,” says Zdravko Huber, editor of the weekly issue of Danas in Belgrade.

Essential to BCR works is our relationship with friends across the Balkans journalistic and human rights community, many of whom are long-standing partners. The Helsinki Committee and Humanitarian Law Centre in Belgrade, B92 radio and TV with its editor Veran Matic, the Lobi and Kapital weeklies in Macedonia, Koha Ditore and its editor Veton Suroi in Kosovo, Bosnia’s Dani weekly and Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, the Centre for Investigative Journalism in Romania, and many more, have offered invaluable support along the way.

BRIDGING THE GAP

Observers say BCR has filled a role that other media outlets in the Balkans have neglected, succeeding in bridging political and ethnic divisions.

“Too often Balkans discourse becomes Balkanised, with people only reading the press of their own country — or even their own part of the country,” says Nicholas Whyte, Balkans programme director for the International Crisis Group “BCR plays an important role in letting the different countries of the region know what they are writing about each other.”

Gabriel Partos, south-east Europe analyst with the BBC World Service, adds that IWPR’s reporting “gives people a chance to find out more about their neighbours… from a more neutral perspective”.

Perhaps the most prominent example of IWPR’s cross-regional approach is its work exposing the problem of human trafficking.

BCR has published a total of 20 articles and five investigative reports on women and children trafficked through the Balkans as part of the international sex trade. The most recent investigation, Trading in Misery [http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/bcr3/bcr3_200309_460_1_eng.txt] , was one of BCR’s most ambitious projects, involving 13 contributors across Romania, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, Greece, Bosnia and Kosovo.

The original article and reports from the ensuing debates were republished a total of 30 times in the local press and received widespread television coverage in the region.

BCR’s reporting of allegations of torture in the police crackdown that followed the assassination of prime minister Djindjic in 2003 provides another example of how its output has succeeded in stirring discussion. A BCR investigation published in June 2003, Serbia: Detainees Allege Torture [http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/bcr3/bcr3_200306_434_5_eng.txt], prompted an Amnesty International report on the subject.

The reports have become an important resource for Balkans analysts across the world, through IWPR’s website and an email list which currently has nearly 9,000 subscribers.

“As a regular reader, I find IWPR consistently provides a window on events in those areas that is not available elsewhere. May there be many, thousands more issues,” says Daniel Serwer, of the United States Institute of Peace in New York.

BCR’s achievements have been recognised with a number of prestigious international awards.

At the 2003 Amnesty International Media Awards, the investigative report Invisible Casualties of War [http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/bcr3/bcr3_200211_383_4_eng.txt], won the Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism. Supporting local journalists to perform at the very top international level, while raising issues of key concern, runs to the very core of the IWPR mission.

BCR has also received several NetMedia online journalism awards over the years.

Importantly, BCR and IWPR’s broader Balkan media development programme has been generously supported throughout by the entire community of development agencies and private foundations involved in conflict resolution and democratic development in the Balkans, particularly the Swedish International Development and Cooperation Agency, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, the Canadian International Development Agency, IREX/USAID, and the OSCE and European Union. To all of our supporters [http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?top_supporters.html] — many thanks.

MORE TO BE DONE

IWPR’s work has always sought to expand boundaries, anticipate change and question received wisdoms both on media issues and in its general reporting.

One of the biggest new challenges is the ambition throughout the region to join the European Union — with all the complexities and uncertainties this will bring. A recent package of stories looked at the different stages reached by regional states — from Croatia to Macedonia — as they struggle to match their expectations with tough economic and political requirements. The interest generated in the region — both in the shape of republished articles and a series of round-table meetings — is a measure of how BCR hopes to contribute to this important public debate moving forward.

There are risks and setback ahead, but also much to celebrate. At BCR’s 500th issue, the core issues journalists have to grapple with now are more to do with economic programmes and reform legislation than armed militias and international interventions. But the core challenge remains the same: to provide reasoned, balanced and fact-based reporting to allow people to make informed decisions on issues affecting their lives – and their neighbours’ lives, too.