Kosovo's fresh start
By Kaare Melhus Posted Mar 31 2009
CHAU NGUYEN/ Global Journalist
Map of Serbia and Kosovo
On Feb. 17, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia and took its first steps toward integration into Europe. The new nation is struggling with unemployment, corruption, ethnic tensions, and lacks basic infrastructure. It also lacks a democratic political culture to deal with the problems.
Established in 2005, the Kosovo Institute of Journalism and Communication (KIJAC) graduates 25 M.A. candidates in journalism every year. They are given the tools they need and gain understanding of the role of free media in a democracy.
In their second year at KIJAC, students do either TV documentaries or feature articles under the supervision of seasoned international journalists. Albana Isufi did a documentary about a dilapidated power plant outside Pristina and its possible connection to the area’s high cancer rate. Former BBC producer Keith Bowers supervises these documentaries.
“It’s been fascinating to see what ideas the students have come up with. Some have tackled political or investigative subjects but others have tackled surprising ideas such as blood feuds or hen parties. What we are trying to do is to give the students the right production skills so they can continue to explore and reflect Kosovar society long after they have left KIJAC,” Bowers says.
Institution-building
The idea of a journalism school was discussed among Kosovar and international journalists involved in the restructuring of Kosovo after the 1999 NATO bombing campaign in Serbia.
By the late ‘90s, the Serbs were persecuting the Albanian majority in the impoverished Serbian province of Kosovo. All of the University of Pristina’s Albanian professors and students were expelled. Armed hostilities broke out between the two ethnic groups, and Albanians headed for the neighboring countries in increasing numbers. By 1999, NATO moved in to prevent downright ethnic cleansing.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Europe, the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, and other organizations involved in Kosovo after the brief war brought in journalist trainers from Europe to hold workshops on election coverage prior to the general elections held in Kosovo in 2000.
Senior OSCE Media Advisor Willem Houwen thought that the journalism training should be institutionalized. One of the press officers in NATO’s Kosovo Force, Kenneth Andresen, was also a journalism teacher at Norway’s Gimlekollen School of Journalism and Communication. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was contacted through Gimlekollen and start-up funds were secured.
Gimlekollen assumed a leadership role in setting up KIJAC. Since few Kosovars were qualified to teach, the task was two-fold. A faculty of international caliber needed to be built, and in the meantime, scholars and seasoned journalists from abroad filled most teaching positions.
Gimlekollen staff and a network of experienced journalists were called in. They had backgrounds from major news organizations like BBC, Time magazine, CBC, London’s Sunday Telegraph, and The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. They taught practical, hands-on journalism courses. Scholars from Cardiff University took responsibility for communication theory and research methods. Experts on web journalism from the University of Nebraska set up KIJAC News Net, modeled after NewsNet Nebraska. Some of the web journalism courses are taught online, while other parts are taught with Nebraska instructors present at KIJAC.
Two leading journalists from Pristina were selected to go abroad for Ph.D. programs. Avni Ahmetaj—a former camera man and stringer for CNN, BBC, Reuters and other visiting news crews—earned an M.A. in journalism at Cardiff. He now runs the technical side of KIJAC operations, with Florent Gorqaj, who was in KIJAC’s first graduating class.
Dukagjin Gorani heads the KIJAC Center and is responsible for non-academic training and production of TV programs. The technical equipment also generates income. Politicians and bureaucrats from various government ministries, including the Office of the Prime Minister, receive media training paid for by the United Nations Development Program.
Willem Houwen, head of school, acknowledges that KIJAC walks a fine line in its cooperation with the government, but notes that, in a country with little or no tradition of democracy, it’s not enough to only teach students these ideas.
“In order for free and diverse media to prosper, attention should also be paid to the challenge of democratic institution building, as a sine qua non condition,” Houwen said.
National dialogue
KIJAC is at the center of a national dialogue. Students are recruited from both the Albanian and Serbian communities and both are represented in the local faculty. Prime Minister Hashim Thaci spoke at a KIJAC conference on transitional justice in Kosovo in June.
“KIJAC has all the ingredients that should become standard to a successful educational center in the future Kosovo: a professional approach, common values and, above all, an integrational, supra-ethnic perspective,” Thaci said.
In 2009, KIJAC plans to produce a series of talk shows where Kosovar Serbs will be given an opportunity to voice their concerns. Serbs in Kosovo number about 200,000 and are scattered in enclaves of various sizes. Many Serbs left before the proclamation of independence. Those who stayed don’t have a unified platform to speak to the broader Kosovar society.
Gorani came up with the idea for the talk show, and notes that it fits into the original idea of KIJAC. “A window to knowledge for members of non-Albanian communities: This was also among key reasons why KIJAC came to existence, in 2005. In Kosovo, where the wounds of aggression and ethnic conflict are still open, quality journalism should be both a job and a mission,” Gorani said.
The watchdog role
David Harrison, senior correspondent with the Sunday Telegraph, won the Paul Foot award for investigative and campaigning journalism in 2006 for a series of investigations into sex trafficking from Eastern Europe. Harrison teaches regularly at KIJAC —especially on investigative journalism. In the West, this subject has the allure of adventure and fame.
But journalism is dangerous in many emerging democracies, and if KIJAC students’ training is tough, their lives as journalists will be even tougher. Powerful groups see the new political system as a threat to their privilege. If these groups are not exposed and neutralized, democracy will not flourish. The KIJAC staff and students are making a small, but important contribution to the struggle for freedom.