Together with our partners, BIRN is launching a series of online and offline events aimed at amplifying the voices of strong and credible individuals and organisations in the region that promote the core values of democracy, such as civic engagement, independent institutions, transparency and the rule of law.
As a primarily media organisation, we want to open space and provide a platform to discuss and reshape our alliances in light of the challenges facing democracies in Southeastern and Central Europe.
This comes at a critical time when the region is seeing several troubling trends towards: centralized power, reduced transparency, assaults on media, politicized judiciaries, unchecked corruption, online violations and social polarization – all amid heightened geopolitical tensions and divisions in Europe.
Due to the ongoing pandemic, Platform B event series will be organised with respect for with all relevant health measures. As the situation improves, we hope to be able to host some of the events in BIRN spaces in Sarajevo and Belgrade, and elsewhere in the region.
Platform B will be an opportunity for individuals and groups to meet monthly on selected topics.
Illustration. BIRN/Igor Vujcic
Next event: Women in Newsrooms: Perspectives on Equity, Diversity and Resilience
Date: January 14, 2022 (Friday)
Time: 3pm-4.30pm CET
At this event, BIRN will present the main findings of its report on the position of female journalists in the Balkans, Women in Newsrooms: Perspectives on Equity, Diversity and Resilience.
The report highlights trends, opportunities and obstacles, identified through the sharing of experiences and perspectives by women working in the media, to paint a more nuanced and complex picture of women’s role in newsrooms, news-making and regional societies more broadly. When it comes to women journalists, prevailing narratives have focused almost exclusively on online violence and women’s vulnerability, rather than on the systems that make this type of abuse prevalent, normalized and even profitable.
This report, and accompanying platform, is an attempt to paint a picture that is more nuanced – to address the intersecting identities and diverse experiences that actually characterize women’s media – and newsrooms more specifically – and their participation and representation in the Balkans.
The report includes in-depth interviews with more than 20 female journalists, editors, fact-checkers, editor-in-chiefs and activists as well as a broad data collection, comprising a total of 175 responses BIRN obtained through an online survey conducted in October and November 2021.
Together with the authors and regional journalists and gender equality experts, we will reflect on the findings of BIRN’s report and offer some recommendations to regional media outlets, journalists’ unions and institutions on how to advance women’s positions in the newsrooms and stop perceiving them as victims but as agents of change.
A complete list of panelists is to be published soon.
Upon registration you will receive a Zoom link.