The participants of BIRN Summer School of Investigative Reporting formed six teams to pitch their investigative stories.
Out of six proposals, BIRN has decided to fund three investigations giving the winners an opportunity to research and develop their ideas into complete stories.
In months to come, journalists from all over the world will collaborate on investigations and their stories will be published on www.balkaninsight.com website.
The awarded stories cover wide range of topics, but all are tackling corruption in the Balkans. The reporting of organised crime and corruption was the principal focus of third BIRN Summer School.
This year’s Summer School was held in Mavrovo, Macedonia, and it finished on August 25.
Over the one-week programme, 28 journalists from the Balkans, Italy, Portugal, Mexico, Australia, USA and Austria have had the opportunity to hone their skills and learn from some of the most prominent investigative journalists in the world.
BIRN gathered high profile trainers and panellists from the Balkans, Europe and USA, including Sheila Coronel, the director and professor of Toni Stable Center at Columbia University, Mark Schoofs from Pro Publica, Paul Lewis of the Guardian and Stephen Grey, Reuters special correspondent and author.
BIRN Summer School of Investigative Reporting 2012 was organized in cooperation with the Media Program South East Europe of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and was supported by Open Society Foundations, OSCE Mission to Skopje, OSCE Mission in Kosovo and USA Embassy in Skopje.