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Appendix
European Centre for War, Peace, and the News Media

Activities to Support Diversity Reporting

About the European Centre for War, Peace, and the News Media

The European Centre for War, Peace, and the News Media (ECWPNM) is a non-profit, non-partisan organisation dedicated to supporting journalists and news organisations in their efforts to sustain an informed, democratic citizenry. The ECWPNM is based in London, and is affiliated with the Centre for War, Peace, and the News Media of New York University, one of the leading media assistance organisations in the United States.

The principal work of the Centre is the coordination and expansion of the Reporting Diversity Network, an international program which brings together journalists, news organisations, media assistance centres, journalism schools and others in a collaborative effort to mobilise the power of the news media in support of a deeper public understanding of diversity, minority communities, inter-group conflict and conflict resolution, and human rights. The Network promotes the highest standards of professional journalism as they relate to coverage of minorities, diversity, and inter-ethnic relations, and develops the tools, training vehicles and practical reporting initiatives required to implement those standards.

• Mid-Career Diversity Training for Journalists: Practical training programs for journalists and news organizations to increase their skills and capabilities for improved reporting on diversity-related concerns.
• Diversity Reporting Initiatives: Journalism projects that address specific local, national and regional diversity issues and/or bring together journalists from communities in conflict.
• Diversity Journalism Education and Curriculum Reform: Working with journalism educators and journalism schools and departments to integrate diversity concerns, ideas, materials, and new approaches into regular courses and curricula.
• Media Assistance for Minority Groups: Strengthening minority-owned media organizations, and developing the minority group NGO skills and resources to work more effectively with majority media to address problematic coverage and support more informed and sensitive reporting on their communities.
• Media Monitoring: Developing monitoring and research projects to better document shortcomings in coverage of ethnic minorities and other marginalized groups; expose chronic problems demanding remedial action; and hold news organizations accountable to the highest professional standards.

Each of these activities are explained in more details further in this text.

In leading the Reporting Diversity Network, the Centre builds on projects undertaken beginning in 1996 in such countries as Albania, Hungary, Latvia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Romania, and Russia. These activities have included the production of specialised Reporting Diversity resource manuals for different countries; special workshops and seminars with journalists on Reporting Diversity issues; and the development of an extensive network of national partners and project supporters among journalists, journalism schools, media assistance organisations, and human and minority rights groups across the region.

The Centre is directed by Milica Pesic, a veteran Serbian journalist now based in London. Ms. Pesic was one of the creators of both the AIM and the Reporting Diversity Network. She has directed and participated in numerous seminars, conferences and workshops on diversity-related issues with organisations such as the UN, UNESCO, Council of Europe, SOROS-OSI, King's Collage, the Freedom Forum, and Internews. Ms. Pesic originates from Belgrade where she worked as TV news presenter/news editor at TV for ten years before being fired in 1991 for refusing to take part in war propaganda. Since then she has worked as a journalist with Radio Free Europe, BBC, Le Mond, Times HES, and Danas Daily in Belgrade, and Vijesti Daily in Montenegro. She has been interviewed on media & conflicts issues numerous times by BBC TV and Radio, as well as ITN of the UK, and NPR of the USA. She graduated Belgrade University with a degree in Comparative Literature with History of Art, and received an MA in International Journalism from City University London.

The Reporting Diversity Network Partners

The Reporting Diversity Network (RDN), a unique collaboration of media organizations from Central and Eastern Europe, is dedicated to the proposition that journalism can, and should, play a central role in aiding increasingly diverse societies understand their differences within, build bridges between and among communities, and explore alternatives to confrontation and violent conflict.

Unique among media assistance efforts in the region, the RDN is focused directly and exclusively on improving media coverage of minorities, inter-ethnic relations, and other diversity issues. To accomplish its mission, the RDN has developed a comprehensive, long-term strategy, based on the extensive experience of its partner organizations across the region:

Albanian Media Institute (Tirana)
Association of Independent Electronic Media (Belgrade)
Centre for Independent Journalism (Bucharest)
Centre for Independent Journalism (Budapest)
Centre for Multicultural Understanding and Cooperation (Skopje)
Centre for War, Peace, and the News Media, New York University (New York)
Independent Journalists Association of Serbia (Belgrade)
International Federation of Journalists (Brussels)
Latvia University, Department of Journalism (Riga)
Media Development Centre (Sofia)
Media Plan Institute (Sarajevo)
Soros Media Centre (Sarajevo)
National Press Institute (Moscow)
Panonia Press Network (Vojvodina)
Roma Press Centre (Budapest)
STINA News Agency (Split)
Vijesti Daily (Podgorica)
International Centre for Education of Journalists (Zagreb)
Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (Podgorica)

Detailed Activities of the European Centre for War, Peace, and the News Media

The ECWPNM has produced a five-year program of Reporting Diversity Network activities. The activities are classified in the Obaskets' as following:

1 Mid-Career Diversity Training and Professional Development - Practical training programs for journalists and news organizations to increase their skills and capabilities for improved reporting on diversity-related concerns. The ECWPNM plans the following specific activities:

• Summer Institute for Media Decision-Makers: Past training activities by the ECWPNM, RDN, and others have focused on reporters, but reporters can do very little to change the news product without the support and understanding of the organization's editors and owners - the decision-makers who ultimately control news content, style, and attitude. Therefore, the ECWPNM, through the RDN, will train the media "decision-makers" as well, through a special Summer Institute. The Summer Institute, held in Croatia, will have the following characteristics: 20-25 media decision-makers from across the region in attendance;
• 5 full days of intensive training;
• A total of 7 trainers, including those who will teach at the concurrent Summer Institute for Journalism Educators;
• Training materials, including the RDN Training Manual;
• Intense and systematic follow-up activities through subsequent consultancies with participants conducted by the two RDN resident experts.
• Post-Conflict Professional Development: In the aftermath of the conflict in former Yugoslavia, the media infrastructure has been destroyed, journalists have fled or turned to non-journalistic activities, or often lack to reporting with balance, objectivity, and fairness. In these conditions, the ECWPNM has planned a particularly important series of activities designed to ensure that the methods and sensibilities of balanced and accurate reporting on minorities, ethnic and identity-group issues, and all post-conflict issues become an integral part of journalism in the region. Specific projects are the following:
  • A five-week Kosovo Media Training Course, to be held in Pristina, which will provide intensive training for 20 young journalists on professional coverage of ethnic, minority, and tolerance issues in the context of basic journalism training;
  • A Post-Conflict Reporting Conference to be held in the region, which will be led by experts on conflict and post-conflict coverage and which will assist journalists from all groups in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia to come to terms with the legacies of the conflict, re-establish ties with each other, and play a constructive role in the process of reconciliation and conflict prevention. Journalists with experience in other post-conflict zones world-wide will help provide an international perspective; - Active participation in the establishment of a Kosovo Media Institute, which is under discussion with the OCSE, as well as the some international donors organizations.

2 Diversity Reporting Initiatives - Journalism projects that address specific local, national and regional diversity issues and/or bring together journalists from communities in conflict. The ECWPNM plans to focus on two particular models of reporting initiatives:

• Regional Team Reporting Projects: The ECWPNM attempts to bring together multi-ethnic teams of reporters to report and write joint feature stories under the supervision of outside team leaders. The resulting stories will be printed or broadcast by all media organizations involved in identical versions, thereby building cross-ethnic professional bonds, providing models of high-quality reporting on ethnic issues, building confidence, and (not least) providing direct professional training. Such projects are designed to provide permanent institutional change among the participating news organizations. Project design and implementation is based on the ECWPNM's team reporting manual. Specific projects will include:
  • In Albania, the ECWPNM will organize a project for journalists from areas with minority communities (Saranda, Korca, Shkodra) based on the concept of "total community coverage." Project leaders will include one of the ECWPNM consultants, Fatos Baxhaku of Gazeta Shqiptare , and Iris Luarasi of Tirana University.
  • In Montenegro, the ECWPNM will employ a similar approach in multiethnic areas (Podgorica, Ulcinj, and Rozaj) with project leader(s) selected by the RDN Montenegrin members, the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights, and Vijesti Daily in Podgorica.
  • In Macedonia, the ECWPNM will work with the Macedonian daily Dnevnik and the Albanian daily Fakti. Gordana Icevska of Dnevnik and Kim Mehmeti, journalist and director of the Centre for Multi-Cultural Cooperation, an RDN member and partner, will serve as project leaders.
• Pilot Regional News Exchange: Despite the launch of a number of news exchange and agency projects in Central and Eastern Europe during the 1990s, distribution of top-quality material on minorities; racial and ethnic conflict; and tolerance remains minimal - with the modest exception. In order to stimulate the distribution of such material, to provide journalists throughout the region with "best practices" models, and to directly contribute to conflict prevention, the ECWPNM will work with existing news agencies as follows:
  • In Croatia, the ECWPNM will help the STINA News Agency in Croatia - which currently serves over 100 media outlets in the region - to introduce a special service devoted to ethnic, racial, and minority issues. The ECWPNM will commission and edit articles and actively promote the initiative. A ECWPNM consultant will spend a month with STINA to provide direct, on-site consulting.

3 Diversity Journalism Education and Curriculum Development - Working with journalism educators and journalism schools and departments to integrate diversity concerns, ideas, materials, and new approaches into regular courses and curricula. Specifically, the ECWPNM will undertake the following activities:

• Regional curriculum development project: Even those journalism professors who understand and appreciate the importance of quality reporting on racial, minority, and ethnic-relations issues typically do not have the tools to transfer that understanding to their students. Effective curricula are lacking. The ECWPNM plans the following RDN project in order to help such professors develop effective mechanisms for teaching the subject and to stimulate interest in doing so among journalism educators throughout the region:
  • Commissioning a comprehensive survey and analysis of existing journalism courses in the region and elsewhere in Europe which cover reporting of minority and ethnic issues;
  • Regional curriculum development workshop dedicated to promoting improved teaching of the coverage of minority, ethnic, and human rights issues.

4 Media Assistance for Minority Groups organizations, and developing the minority group NGO skills and resources to work more effectively with majority media to address problematic coverage and support more informed and sensitive reporting on their communities. The ECWPNM work in this area will consist of two parts:

• Media Relations Guide: In order to provide basic guidance for establishing effective relationships with mainstream media, the RDN will produce a Media Relations Guide, to help minority organizations effectively interact with the mainstream media.
• Annual Minorities Media Relations Workshop: In order to launch the Media Relations Guide and begin the process of training minority representatives and heads of NGOs, the ECWPNM will hold the first annual RDN Minorities Media Relations Workshop. The four-day event will include 20-25 participants representing minority communities of the region as well as two regional trainers and one international trainer, in addition to one of the ECWPNM regionally-based consultants. One of the trainers will be from the Roma Press Centre in Budapest, one of the RDN members.

5 Media Monitoring for Program Development and Implementation - Developing monitoring and research projects to better document shortcomings in coverage of ethnic minorities and other marginalized groups; expose chronic problems demanding remedial action; and hold news organizations accountable to the highest professional standards. Specific activities will include the following:

• Media Monitoring Experts Group (MMEG): In order to help develop the protocol and to provide specific feedback and advice to the RDN members and other organizations which undertake media monitoring projects, a 5-person International Advisory Committee will be created to provide general guidance, project-specific advice, and other consulting in media monitoring.
• RDN Member Monitoring: Using the research protocol developed by the RDN, and drawing on and consulting with the international advisory committee described above, each RDN member will fund, organize, and implement media monitoring and research projects appropriate to its programmatic needs and local circumstances.