Regional Camp in Sarajevo Boosts Journalists’ Skills in Crisis Reporting
From April 28 to 30, a regional journalism camp was held in Sarajevo, focusing on legally safe reporting, crisis journalism and digital security. The three-day training brought together 25 journalists from across the Western Balkans, providing them with essential tools to navigate a complex and increasingly hostile media landscape.
The training was led by three international safety experts, Sharbil Nammour, Russ Draycott and Michael Buddle, in collaboration with the ACOS Alliance. Sessions focused on risk assessment and building real-world resilience, emphasizing both physical preparedness and digital threat mitigation.
“Our approach is very much hands-on,” Draycott said. “This is real-world training. We’re getting delegates out of their seats, onto the floor, and teaching life-saving medical skills. These experiences prepare journalists for the real problems they face today.”
Journalists in the region frequently face defamation in tabloid and social media, alongside challenges in maintaining digital and personal safety. The camp addressed these risks through a cross-sectoral approach, drawing on expertise from multiple fields. With such training, journalists are better prepared to find interesting and hard-reaching stories.
“Sometimes these stories bring them in to conflict and even danger and what we are trying to do is to make them understand and have tools to mitigate those dangers and threats against them, whether they are personal, security or digital. Medical training is a great life skill and something that will hopefully make them feel better to cope with anything they deal with,” Draycott added.
One of the highlights was the presentation of the new BIRN report, “Surveillance and Censorship in the Western Balkans.”
The findings, presented by Megi Reçi, BIRN’s Digital Rights Research Lead, paint a troubling picture. The report reveals that governments in the region are increasingly leveraging technology to suppress dissent, censor online content, restrict access to digital platforms and carry out both mass and targeted surveillance. Read more about it here.
The camp was a joint initiative of the EU-funded project “Strengthening Quality News and Independent Journalism in the Western Balkans and Turkey II”, the Open Society Foundation-funded project “Surveillance and Censorship in the Western Balkans”, and the Austrian Development Agency funded-project “Paper Trail for Better Governance IV”. It was organised by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN).
The training programme has been developed in partnership with A Culture of Safety (ACOS) Alliance. ACOS works to embed a culture of safety within journalism, advance safety standards, and help journalists and newsrooms implement the Freelance Journalist Safety Principles through their safety training initiatives and resources.
