Category: News and Events

“Fact-checkers are not boring,” BIRN editor Ivana Jeremic told participants on the third day of BIRN’s Summer School of Investigative Journalism in Montenegro on Wednesday. “They are here to make your story better”.

That was just one of the messages from Jeremic’s talk on the importance of fact-checking in journalism.

“Keep track of your activities and data. Question your thesis. Use timelines. Use Excel or Google Sheets. Save all the emails, messages and calls. Fact-checking will make your story even better,” Jeremic told the assembled journalists from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and the United States.

In the second session, Ben Strick, an investigator at BBC Africa Eye and Bellingcat, took participants through the fundamentals of open source data from Strava, Google Maps to Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

In an interactive session, reporters had the opportunity to geolocate and chrono-locate various videos and pictures with Strick’s help.

Lead trainer Blake Morrison, Reuters investigative projects editor, discussed the art of the interview.

“Be yourself. Don’t deceive. Don’t get flustered. Ask for help,” he said. “You must be genuinely interested.”

The day ended with a screening of the Bellingcat documentary “Truth in a Post-Truth World”.

BIRN’s Summer School is organised in cooperation with the Media Program South East Europe of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, The Balkan Trust for Democracy and Austrian Development Agency, the operational unit of Austrian Development Cooperation, and with support from the European Union.

Day Two of BIRN’s Summer School of Investigative Journalism looked at the importance of proof, how to visualise an investigation for multimedia and methods of tracking offshore companies.

In the Montenegrin coastal town of Herceg Novi, lead trainer Blake Morrison put 30 reporters from the Balkans, Belgium, Hungary and the United States through their paces in trying to prove the stories they were reading were fake.

“Get rid of possible, leave provable,” said Morrison, investigative projects editor at Reuters.

After a short break, the journalists spent three hours with US cinematographer Andrew Baker, who looked at ways to make investigative journalism visual.

“Know your story and follow it. Know your scene”, said Baker. “You have to be flexible, to know to pick up a camera or microphone, even if it is not your job. And always have a sound guy.”

Those attending the weeklong course, the 10th edition of BIRN’s Summer School, also heard from Dragan Peco, an investigative journalist with Serbian KRIK and the international Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, OCCRP, about how to track hidden offshore firms.

BIRN’s Summer School is organised in cooperation with the Media Program South East Europe of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, The Balkan Trust for Democracy and Austrian Development Agency, the operational unit of Austrian Development Cooperation, and with support from the European Union.

The 10th edition of the BIRN Summer School of Investigative Journalism kicked off on Monday in the Montenegrin coastal town of Herceg Novi.

The weeklong summer school brings together journalists from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and the United States.

On the first day, after an introduction by Marija Ristic, regional director of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, those attending heard from Reuters investigative projects editor and the school’s lead trainer Blake Morrison about how to approach complex investigative stories, pitch ideas and find the right words to craft them.

“Experts aren’t simply meant to be quoted in stories,” Morrison said in one of his tips for those attending.

“The best ones – the most helpful, at least – are the ones who serve as your guide to understanding what you cover. Find a few. Be aware of their biases and treat them with a reporter’s skepticism. Ask them what are you missing. What do they see?”

Suddeutsche Zeitung journalist Frederik Obermaier, who was part of the Panama Papers investigation, spoke about investigating data, verifying leaks and the problems he and his team faced as they trawled though terabytes of data.

“Authenticity, public interest, no conditions, request for comment and known identity of the source, are 5 tips on what to check for when dealing with data leaks,” said Obermaier.

The debate continued during Obermaier’s second session when he looked at the case of the video leak that brought down Austria’s right-wing vice-chancellor, Heinz-Christian Strache, and eventually the country’s coalition government.

After a break, the reporters discussed story proposals and heard from BIRN’s investigative editor, Ivan Angelovski, about how to track ships and planes online.

BIRN’s Summer School is organised in cooperation with the Media Program South East Europe of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, headed by Hendrik Sittig, The Balkan Trust for Democracy and Austrian Development Agency, the operational unit of Austrian Development Cooperation and with support from the European Union.

Applications for scholarships must be received by July 25th, 2019. No application for an assisted place will be considered after this deadline. Standard applications (for non-scholarship applicants) must be received by August 1st, 2019. All participants will receive a BIRN Summer School certificate.

The tenth annual BIRN Summer School of Investigative Reporting will take place in Herceg Novi, Montenegro, in the heart of Boka Bay. Between August 18 and 25, reporters will have the opportunities to learn cutting-edge investigation skills while enjoying the delights of the Adriatic Sea.

Successful applicants will be provided with excellent possibilities for networking – and the possibility of getting a grant for a story idea.

For five days, 30 attendees will have the opportunity to learn from award-winning journalists and editors on how to conduct open source investigations, visualize stories, and investigate big data and verify leaks. Reporters will work together in groups throughout the week to develop an idea for a hard-hitting investigation, which will be presented to a panel of judges on the final day.

Best ideas will be awarded with funds and editorial support.

Like every year, BIRN Summer School trainers are committed to helping attendees develop the skills necessary for every journalist who specializes in investigative journalism. Among the trainers at the 10th Birn Summer School are: Blake Morrison, projects editor at Reuters; Frederik Obermaier, Süddeutsche Zeitung; and Benjamin Strick, BBC Africa Eye, and Bellingcat.

Take an opportunity to improve investigative skills and learn the latest tricks from media experts – apply now

For more information about the enrolment requirements, trainers and agenda please check BIRN Summer School of Investigative Reporting page.

If you need further information, don’t hesitate to contact us at birnsummerschool@birn.eu.com.

Blake Morrison, investigative projects editor at Reuters and three-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting, is the lead trainer for the 10th annual Birn Summer School. The School will be hosted in the heart of Boka Bay at Herceg Novi and will run from August 18th to August 25th, with participants from across the Western Balkans and Europe.

In addition to Morison’s lectures, the more than 30 participants will have an opportunity to learn from some of the world’s leading editors and journalists, such as Frederick Obermaier (Süddeutsche Zeitung), Benjamin Strick (BBC Africa Eye and Bellingcat) and many more.

Since joining Reuters, Morrison has overseen and edited a variety of projects that includes two finalists for the Pulitzer Prize: The Child Exchange, an investigation of America’s underground market for adopted children, and The Echo Chamber, a special report that revealed how a handful of lawyers came to have an outsize influence at the U.S. Supreme Court. At BIRN Summer School he will reveal the secrets of interviewing to attendees, teach them how to conceive and organize an investigative project, and help them learn to imagine a story.

Frederick Obermaier, an investigative journalist for Süddeutsche Zeitung and one of the initiators and coordinators of the ICIJ’s Panama Papers investigation, will teach participants how to investigate large data sets and verify leaks.

As part of the Panama Papers team he won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting; the George Polk award; the Perfil award; and the Nannen Preis, a prestigious German journalism prize. He was voted, together with his colleagues Bastian Obermayer and Vanessa Wormer, “German Journalist of the Year 2016”.

In addition to the Panama Papers, Obermaier was a part of the team that uncovered Germany’s role in the United States’s drone war. Obermaier has received numerous awards for his other work, including the CNN-Award in 2011 and the Wächterpreis der Tagespresse and Helmut Schmidt Prize in 2013.

Participants in the BIRN Summer School will also have the opportunity to study open source investigations from one of the leading researchers in the field—Benjamin Strick, an open-source investigator for BBC Africa Eye and Bellingcat. Strick, with a background in law and the military, was part of the BBC Africa Eye team that developed Anatomy of a Killing, a reconstruction of the killing of civilians in Cameroon in 2015. Anatomy of a Killing won a Peabody Award and a Webby award in the Documentary: Longform category.

BIRN’s own Ivan Angelovski and Ivana Jeremic will teach attendees how to fact check their stories and how to track ships and planes online.

Participants will also have the opportunity to learn from journalist Andrew Baker, who will show them how to visualize investigation, including using smartphones to do so. Award winning German journalist Olaf Sundermeyer will talk about investigative documentaries focused on organized crime and political extremism.

Beyond lectures, participants will enjoy screenings and discussions of award-winning documentaries, including “Bellingcat – Truth in a Post-Truth World.”

BIRN’s Summer School is organised in cooperation with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung’s Media Program South East Europe.

The Summer School’s 29 participants divided into nine groups and presented ideas for investigations on which they would like to work.

The participants proposed investigations into female reproductive rights, air quality, the road industry, Balkan countries’ relations with Turkey and Hungary, illegal trading, smear campaigns and police dealings with private companies.

Each group gave a presentation of the outline of their proposed investigation and answered questions about the scale of their story, why it is important and what impact they expect.

The best three story ideas are being chosen by a jury composed of Reuters investigative editor and Summer School lead trainer Blake Morrison, BIRN’s Regional Director Marija Ristic and Investigative Editor Lawrence Marzouk, and the Executive Producer Podcasting for E.W Scripps national bureau, Susanne Reber, who was also a trainer at the Summer School.

The three ideas that are chosen will then receive funding from the Investigative Story Fund.

The ninth BIRN Summer School brought together young journalists from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, Britain and the United States. For the first time, the Summer School also welcomed journalists from Moldova and Ukraine.

The Summer School is organised in cooperation with the Media Program South East Europe of the Konrad Adenauer-Stiftung, the Open Society Foundations and the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the operational unit of the Austrian Development Cooperation, with support from the European Union.

Politicians in various European countries have insulted and discredited journalists, populism is on the rise, the press is vilified – and it has led to the creation of an environment in which two journalists were killed in just four months in two European Union states, Malta and Slovakia.

Czech investigative journalist Pavla Holcova and Maltese media freedom advocate Matthew Caruana Galizia spoke about this context to participants in BIRN’s Summer School of Investigative Reporting on Thursday, advising them on how to cope with security threats as investigative journalists.

“We’ve pushed the boundaries of our profession and are holding people accountable in ways that were not possible before. This brings new dangers,” Caruana Galizia explained. “As a journalist, if you’re good, you’re at greater risk,” he added.

Caruana Galizia, a former investigative journalist, witnessed his own mother’s murder in October 2017. Daphne Caruana Galizia, 50, a Maltese journalist well known for her graft investigations died after a bomb was placed under the seat in her car.

Holcova, a journalist with the Czech Center for Investigative Journalism, spent a month under police protection and had to cut communications with family and friends, after her co-worker, Slovak reporter Jan Kuciak was shot together with his fiancée at their home on February 21, 2018.

Holcova and Kuciak worked together in collaboration with the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, OCCRP, on an investigation into links between the Slovak government and Italian organized crime.

Slovak police also interrogated Holcova for eight hours and confiscated her cellphone. However, she said, the investigation hasn’t made much progress, despite pressure from the public in Slovakia.

“There is no information coming from the Slovak police. The only info we get is that the investigators are making mistakes,” she said.

She believes that investigative journalists risk their safety when pursuing a story and that they need to spot the signs of threats, such as being followed.

Galizia explained that both he and his mother were followed for months by her assassins.

“I had this feeling that my mother was being followed,” he said. “I woke up every day and told myself to check the bottom of the car. I did not check that morning,” he added.

After his mother’s murder, Galizia quit working as a journalist and focused on advocacy. He is now working on ways to protect journalists from violent attacks and on legal ways to pressurize government into respecting the freedom of the press.

“Violence against journalists right now is cheap,” he explained. “We need to raise the costs of violence against journalists.”

Holcova also said that regaining the public’s trust and support is also important for journalism.

“That’s what we should rely on. We need to explain to society that they need us, that they need the information we provide and that they need to trust the media.

“We can’t rely on international bodies, but we need to regain the trust of the public, because without us the people in power would not be accountable for their actions,” Holcova said.

As BIRN’s summer school continued on Wednesday, lead trainer and Reuters investigative projects editor Blake Morrison held a session on the “art of interviewing” and on how to convince difficult sources to talk, describing interviews as a crucial component of the journalistic job.

“Think of any story as a blind date,” he told participants.

Morrison stressed the need for preparation and gave insight into why some people agree to give an interview – vanity, the need to be understood, self-interest, desperation, guilt and curiosity.

Susanne Reber, co-founder of Reveal podcast and Podcasting Executive Producer for E.W. Scripps National, introduced participants to the art of podcasting and of making stories heard.

BIRN investigations editor Lawrence Marzouk spoke of how to research the arms trade, using open source data.

The financial investigations workshop continued with OCCRP’s Miranda Patrucic explaining the Paradise Papers and how investigative journalists can find leads and data in the leaks.

The geolocation and digital investigations workshop also continued on Wednesday, with Bellingcat’s Christiaan Triebert’s lecturing on how to verify if a photo or a video was taken in a certain location at a given time.

Lead trainer Morrison held a second practical individual session with journalists.

The ninth BIRN Summer School has brought together young journalists from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, the UK, and the United States. For the first time, the Summer School has welcomed journalists from Moldova and Ukraine.

The Summer School is organised in cooperation with the Media Program South East Europe of the Konrad Adenauer- Stiftung, Open Society Foundations, the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the operational unit of Austrian Development Cooperation, with support from the European Union.

Blake Morrison, investigative projects editor at Reuters, introduced participants at the BIRN Summer School of Investigative Reporting to fact-checking strategies and conducted a hands-on exercise exploring the differences between supposition and proof.

Miranda Patrucic, editor with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, explained how to interpret and get the most from financial reports and documents.

In the afternoon, New York Times senior video editor Christoph Koettl looked at how to analyse content and metadata in photos and videos.

Bellingcat’s Christiaan Triebert introduced participants to open-source investigation and verification looking at how the organisation investigated the downing of the passenger plane MH17 over Ukraine and the 2016 failed coup in Turkey.

The ninth BIRN Summer School has brought together young journalists from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, the UK, and the United States.

For the first time, the Summer School has welcomed journalists from Moldova and Ukraine.

The Summer School is organised in cooperation with the Media Program South East Europe of the Konrad Adenauer- Stiftung, Open Society Foundations, the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the operational unit of Austrian Development Cooperation, with support from the European Union.

Reporters from the Balkan region and across the world gathered on Monday in the mountain resort of Poiana Brasov, Romania, for the ninth BIRN Summer School of Investigative Reporting.

After greeting participants, Blake Morrison, the school’s lead trainer and investigative projects editor at Reuters, held a lecture and discussion about how to imagine a complex investigative story, as well as how to push for accountability.

Christoph Koettl, senior video journalist at The New York Times, specializing in geospatial and open-source research, also held an introductory session on using digital research and verification in investigative research.

He continued with a lecture on geospatial and satellite imagery used in investigative journalism, followed by an interactive exercise.

In the afternoon, the participants discussed story ideas and were divided up into smaller groups for in-depth sessions with Reuters’ editor Morrison.

The ninth BIRN Summer School has brought together young journalists from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, the UK, and the United States.

For the first time, the Summer School welcomed journalists from Moldova and Ukraine.

The Summer School is organized in cooperation with the Media Program South East Europe of the Konrad Adenauer- Stiftung, Open Society Foundations, the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the operational unit of Austrian Development Cooperation, with support from the European Union.