Trainers and panelists – Page 14

Miranda Patrucic

Miranda Patrucic is a leading investigative reporter and regional editor with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and the lead investigator with Investigative Dashboard.

She is also an international speaker who has trained investigative reporters, anti-corruption groups and police in dozens of countries around the world. She was the lead reporter on projects exposing alliances between government, business and organized crime in Montenegro as well as crime and corruption involving the First Bank of Montenegro that uncovered the massive misuse of public funds. She was part of a team that reported on how the Bosnian government bought an apartment for the prime minister, which led to his indictment and resignation in 2009. She was the lead reporter on a joint project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) on tobacco smuggling in Montenegro that uncovered many of that country’s prime minister’s hidden assets. She also worked on ICIJ’s project Looting the Seas, uncovering a $4 billion black market in endangered bluefin tuna. Both projects won IRE’s Tom Renner award for crime reporting. She also worked on OCCRP’s Offshore Crime, Inc. series that won the Daniel Pearl Award. As a specialist in tracking people and companies, Patrucic has worked with reporters from the Middle East, Europe, US, Canada, Latin America and Australia.

Mila Radulovic

Mila Radulovic is an experienced journalist that worked for the most prominent media in Serbia and Montenegro Borba, Dnevni Telegraf, Vijesti and agency Beta.

In the beginning of her career, she reported on political and economic topics. In past years, her focus is on stories pertaining to corruption. Presently, she is coordinating an investigative journalism programme for the NGO MANS, which is devoted to fighting corruption and organized crime.

Philipp Grüll

Philipp Grüll was born in 1982 and studied communication science, politics and law in Munich and Venice, Italy.

During his studies he worked as a freelance journalist for Süddeutsche Zeitung and the news agency DDP. Since 2010, he has reported for the public broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR). He focuses on political issues for the magazines “Kontrovers” (BR) and “report München” on the nationwide ARD-channel “Das Erste”. He co-authored the documentary “Tito’s Murder Squads – The Killing of Yugoslav Exiles in Germany” alongside Frank Hofmann. He has received several awards for his journalistic work.

Hrvoje Appelt

Hrvoje Appelt worked for daily newspaper “Jutarnji list” and weekly magazine “Globus” for 11 years, receiving the Marija Juric-Zagorka award for investigative journalism in 2005

Following threats received after he wrote articles on organised crime in 2008 he was placed under 24 hr police protection. Although his life was in danger, Hrvoje Appelt was fired by his employer. Today, he is an independent investigative journalist.

http://www.appeltreport.com/

Lawrence Marzouk

Lawrence Marzouk is a journalist and editor with Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Kosovo. He has worked as a journalist for a decade, writing and editing for major regional newspapers in Britain, and contributing news, investigations and features to national British newspapers.

He helped his first paper to national awards with his editing of the coverage of July 2005 London bombings.

Lawrence has been shortlisted twice for regional reporter of the year awards for his work uncovering scandals in the British public sector, including serious conflicts of interests and lavish spending by state institutions, exposed by documents obtained under the Freedom of Information act.

Since 2009, he has worked for Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Kosovo, editing its English-language newspaper Prishtina Insight and launching a new investigative journalism portal, Gazeta Jeta ne Kosove.

His investigations into high-level corruption have led to international and local criminal probes, including against serving ministers.

In 2010 and 2011, he won best anti-corruption investigation of the year at awards organised by the UN Development Programme.

Lawrence is the author of the manual Follow the Paper Trail, a guide to document-based investigative journalism in Kosovo.

He is currently involved in various projects making data more accessible in Kosovo, including scraping public databases, and encouraging the use of Freedom of Information laws through workshops.

Gavin Rees

Gavin Rees is the director of Dart Centre Europe, a not-for-profit media organisation that is dedicated to supporting informed, innovative and ethical news reporting on violence, conflict and tragedy

The Centre operates as part of a global, interdisciplinary network of news professionals, mental health experts, educators and researchers who work in such areas as crime, family violence, natural disaster, war and human rights.

Over the last 15 years Gavin has worked in a variety of broadcast media, producing business and political news for international networks, as well as working on drama and documentary films for the BBC, Channel 4 and other broadcasters.

During this work Gavin has developed a specialist interest in understanding and teaching the dynamics of interview situations and, in particular, how journalists might best approach vulnerable people who have been affected by traumatic violence or structural poverty.

Gavin is a former Research Fellow at Bournemouth Media School and was a leading member of the production team for the BBC documentary drama, Hiroshima, which won an international Emmy in 2006.

http://dartcenter.org/staff#bio-849 or http://dartcenter.org/

Luuk Sengers

Luuk Sengers is an investigative reporter and journalism lecturer

He was a staff writer at national newspapers and magazines in the Netherlands for sixteen years, before he founded his own company in 2005.

Since then he has taught investigative techniques to reporters and other research professionals. He still writes pieces about the environment and sustainability, and he is busy establishing an international website for stories about the transition towards a sustainable society.

Luuk is a board member of the Dutch Flemish Association of Investigative Journalists.

http://www.luuksengers.nl/

Nevena Ruzic

Nevena has been working as the Head of Cabinet of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection since May 2009

She previously worked for the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights – YUCOM and then for the OSCE Mission to Serbia as Freedom of Media Coordinator. She was a research assistant for DiploFoundation in information society and online freedom of expression issues.

Nevena is a founding member of the International Media Lawyers’ Association.

Nevena graduated from the School of Law at the University of Belgrade in 2002 and holds an MA in Contemporary Diplomacy from the University of Malta and an LLM in International and European Human Rights from the University of Leeds.

She is currently doing her doctoral studies at the Legal Studies Department of the Central European University. Her thesis is about the liability of ISPs for freedom of expression vis-à-vis copyright and constitutional justification.

Nick Thorpe

Nick Thorpe is an award-winning writer and journalist. A contributor to the Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Independent, Scotsman and BBC Radio 4 among others, he has covered stories ranging from Russian presidential elections to the coca wars of Bolivia, for which he was shortlisted for the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism.

His bestselling book, Adrift in Caledonia: Boat-hitching for the Unenlightened, is the story of his 2500-mile journey around Scotland on other people’s boats. It was published by Little Brown and serialised on BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week programme in March 2006.

Eight Men and a Duck, his critically-acclaimed first book, recounts his voyage to Easter Island by reed boat and was published by Abacus in 2003. He is currently working on a new book called Relax or Die: Adventures in the Lost Art of Letting Go, due for publication in 2011.

Born in 1970, Nick grew up near London but moved to Scotland more than 15 years ago. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife and young son. His obsessions include Six Feet Under, the meaning of existence and things that float.

http://www.nickthorpe.co.uk