Moving Beyond Conflict: Local News Reporting on Serbian-language Television in Kosovo

In any tense political environment, the need for locally driven news is particularly high. Professionalism and the ability to identify and develop relevant stories can thoroughly inform populations in a way that accurately presents their often volatile communities and can serve to reduce tensions and combat calls to violence. Kosovo today demonstrates the need for this locally driven, professional reporting.

The past year has witnessed growing tensions between Serbs and Kosovar Albanians as the province of Serbia and UN protectorate moved towards independence. After Kosovo declared its independence on February 17 of this year, tensions flared into violence. Protesters set fire to the US Embassy in Belgrade and trashed stores and shops that were associated with the United States. In Kosovo, Serbs set fire to border posts and attacked a UN building in the divided city of Mitrovica.

To many outside observers it seemed that there was little hope that Serbs in Kosovo would agree to live peacefully with Albanians and would turn away from the West. But leading up to the declaration and throughout the ensuing conflict, IREX training-teams of Serbs, Albanians, and Americans worked closely and cooperatively with local Serbian television stations in both Serb-dominated northern Kosovo and in Serbian enclaves throughout the rest of Kosovo.

Most recently, 12 journalists and eight technicians from these Serbian-language stations participated in a special IREX program to develop television reporting and camera skills to improve their news bulletins. With many Serbian-language stations dependent on rebroadcasting news they receive from Serbia, Serbs in Kosovo get better news about events in Belgrade than they do on happenings in their own communities or in Kosovo. With the skills that they practiced with IREX trainers Martha Dixon and Dejan Vuksanovic, the journalists were able to report quickly, professionally, and accurately on events in Serbian areas of Kosovo after the declaration of independence.

As a result of the training, one participant, Alexander Spiric, a journalist at TV Most with only three months of experience, produced a story on the lack of healthcare for ethnic Serbs in Mitrovica. The story was of such quality that it aired not only on TV Most but also on Serbian National Broadcaster, RTS.

IREX designed the training to improve the quality of story selection for news bulletins and to encourage journalists to look for the “real” story in a news item rather than accepting what is offered at face value, to use human interest angles in storytelling, and to match pictures to the narrative as much as possible. An overall theme was employing journalistic and production techniques to make the news more relevant and interesting to the audience.

Funded by USAID, the Kosovo Media Assistance Program (KMAP) has supported independent media in Kosovo since 2005.  Working with national broadcasters KTV and RTV21 and with a group of local partners, IREX has provided training for journalism, business development, and media research, and has offered a competitive grants program that provided funding for the production of programs and documentaries designed to raise the quality, variety, and professionalism of reporting and broadcasting in Kosovo.