Author: Aleksandra Vrbica

Monika Kutri

Journalist safety specialist
The Croatian Journalists’ Association (CJA)

Monika Kutri is a project manager and journalist safety specialist at the Croatian Journalists’ Association. Over the past five years, her primary focus has been on the safety of journalists in Croatia and the Balkan region as part of the SafeJournalists network. She is the author of the annual Indicators of Media Freedom and Journalist Safety in Croatia, as well as the Journalist Safety Index. In recent years, Monika has been increasingly involved in digital security. Since 2022, she has been a trainer in digital security for journalists, continually enhancing her skills and expertise in this area.

Summer School of Investigative Reporting 2024 Sessions

Shielding the Truth: Digital Security Essentials for Journalists

In an era of pervasive digital threats, this session equips journalists with essential knowledge and tools to safeguard their communications, sources, and data against cyber attacks and surveillance, covering the latest encryption techniques, secure communication methods, and best practices for digital security.

Group session: Digital Security, Virtual Reality (VR) and through Tabletop Exercises (TTX)

The session will simulate scenarios using VR and through TTX, preparing participants in a secure environment to identify and mitigate digital threats. A VR experience will allow journalists to practise making critical decisions which impact their digital security and to safely experience the sensation of sustaining an attack, while TTX  to discuss key digital security dilemmas and assess their organisation or community’s readiness to respond to incidents.

Redon Skikuli

Digital Infrastructure
Expert CryptoParty Tirana (CPT)

Redon Skikuli has been a digital rights and Free Libre Open Source promoter since 2012. Co-founder of Cloud68.co, Open Source Conference Albania (known widely as OSCAL), CryptoParty Tirana and LibreLabs Albania. Redon is a passionate advocate for open knowledge and online privacy, based in Tirana, Albania. He studied communication and marketing in Athens, but changed direction when he co-founded the first hackerspace in 2012. Since then, he’s been at the forefront of initiatives like CryptoParty Tirana and OSCAL, driving conversations on digital rights and open access in Tirana. His dedication to open knowledge is evident in extensive contributions to projects like OpenStreetMap, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikidata. Last but not least, Redon has been invited to various open-source conferences as a presenter, sharing insights on various topic with emphasis on digital rights in the post Snowden age.

Summer School of Investigative Reporting 2024 Sessions

How do Tech & Journalism Intersect and What to Do With It

Redon Skikuli and Boris Budini will jointly explore how to extract more insights from publicly available open-source information online,  showcasing of powerful tools and practical skills for investigative journalism. From data analysis to online research, we will try to get some practical skills and resources that can be used daily.

Group session: Advanced Deep & Dark Web

In this session, Redon Skikuli and Boris Budini will explore safe navigation techniques for investigating stories on the deep and dark web, including advanced methods for secure payments and information analysis, with live demonstrations and hands-on experience.

Jeta Xharra

Country Director, Kosovo
Editor-in-Chief

Jeta Xharra is a renowned journalist in Kosovo and the Balkans.

Since 2005, she has been the Country Director of the BIRN office in Kosovo and the editor-in-chief of Kosovo’s most-watched current affairs TV programme, Life in Kosovo.

Xharra first got into journalism by working as a fixer/local producer for BBC News and Channel 4 in 1998 and later became Manager of the BBC Kosovo Bureau. In 1999, she worked for BBC News in Albania and Macedonia.

She graduated with an MA in War Studies from King’s College London (2000) and an MA with Distinction in Screenwriting from the London College of Printing (2002).

She has published a front-page article in The Independent and other articles in The Economist, Sunday Telegraph and Jane’s Intelligence Review. While in the UK, Xharra worked for the Foreign News Planning Desk at the BBC World Service.

In 2003, Xharra became Project Director for the IWPR Kosovo office, where she made an impact with her vigilant and challenging moderation of popular current affairs programmes broadcast on the main Kosovo TV channels, RTK and KTV.

Under Xharra’s supervision, Kosovo was the first office in the IWPR Balkan project to develop a three-month journalism training programme, which attracted over 200 people for 20 places.

Warless, a play that Xharra wrote in English, was chosen as one of the 10 best plays among 550 that competed in the Young Writers Festival at the Royal Court Theatre in London, where it had a public reading on December 10 2004.

Summer School of Investigative Reporting 2025 Session

From Exposure to Impact: Why Some Investigations Spark Change and Others Don’t

This session will explore the key factors that determine whether investigative stories lead to real-world change, examining case studies, strategies for maximizing impact, and the role of timing, storytelling, and stakeholder engagement.

Blake Morrison

Lead Trainer, Investigative Projects Editor
Reuters New York

Based in New York as the investigative projects editor at Reuters, Blake Morrison has overseen and edited three projects that were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize: The Child Exchange, an investigation of America’s underground market for adopted children; The Echo Chamber, a special report that revealed how a handful of lawyers came to have an outsized influence in the US Supreme Court; and Cheat Sheet, an investigation into how standardised tests used by universities  to determine who to accept have been compromised by rampant, systematic cheating and other security failures.

Projects he has overseen have resulted in decades of jail time for individuals whose wrongdoing the Reuters investigations have exposed.

Prior to joining Reuters, Blake served as the investigations editor, deputy enterprise editor and investigative reporter at USA TODAY. His investigation into the impact of industrial pollution on schoolchildren spurred the US government to launch a $2.25-million project to examine the air outside more than 60 schools across the nation. The reporting earned honours including the Grantham Prize, a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism, the Fourth Estate Award, the America’s Promise Journalism Award, the Kevin Carmody Award for Outstanding Investigative Reporting, the Fred M. Hechinger Grand Prize, the John B. Oakes Award and the Philip Meyer Journalism Award. Before joining USA TODAY, Blake spent six years as a beat reporter, investigative reporter and editor at the St Paul Pioneer Press.

Summer School of Investigative Reporting 2025 Sessions  

The Investigative Mindset

This interactive presentation is designed to reignite our curiosity and creativity in the field of investigative journalism.

Formulating Story Ideas: How to Structure Your Pitch

Building on lessons learned throughout the week, this final session will guide participants in crafting a compelling pitch that captures the essence of the story.

The Art of Interview:

This session will explore the techniques and strategies essential for conducting effective interviews. From developing a personal interviewing style to navigating difficult conversations.

What We Expect to Hear Tomorrow:

Learning how to refine and focus your story ideas to create pitches that resonate with editors and audiences alike.

Aldo, Enterprise on your Beat:

How to structure your time and approach to do ambitious reporting

Remzi Lani

Lani spent nine years (1983-1992) as chief editor of ‘Zeri i Rinise’ newspaper, followed by three years (1992 1995) as media coordinator at the Soros Foundation

A graduate of Tirana University, Faculty of Philosophy. Lani was also a correspondent for the Spanish newspaper ‘El Mundo’ between 1991   1993; and for ‘Zeri’ newspaper, in Pristina, between 1993 and 1995.

Lani currently works as the Executive Director of the Albanian Media Institute and is also editor of the Alternative Information Network in Tirana, the first President of the South East Network of Media Centers and Media Institutes, which brings together 17 organisations in SEE and is a founding member of the first Human Rights Group in Albania (The Forum for Human Rights).

He has written widely on Balkan affairs for local and international newspapers and magazines such as: ‘El Mundo’  Madrid, ‘The Guardian’   London, Quimera   Barcelona, The International Spectator   Rome, Futuribili  Trieste, Fokus   Skopje, Nasha Borba   Belgrade, Vreme Belgrade, Oslobodjenie   Sarajevo, Monitor   Podgorica, War Report   London, and Transition-Prague.

Lani has worked with the Aspen Institute, Berlin, the Istituto Affari Internationali-Rome, CESPI-Rome, the Center for International and Strategic Studies- Washington, the Carter Center- Atlanta, and the Hellenic Foundation-Athens on a range of Balkans related projects and has participated in numerous conferences, seminars and post graduate qualification courses in Albania, the USA, Greece, France, Spain, Denmark, Germany, Italy, England, Hungary, Macedonia, Poland and Turkey.

He is co author of the books ‘My Albania   Ground Zero’   New York, 1992 and ‘Masters of Humanist Philosophy’, Tirana, 2000.

http://www.institutemedia.org/