Ten journalists selected for 2007’s Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence will be introduced to the programme next week at a seminar in Vienna. The event, organised by the Erste Foundation and hosted by the Fellowship’s Austrian media partner, Der Standard, runs from 27-31 May.

Over these four days, the fellows, who hail from all over the Balkans, shall get to know one another, as well as the components of the Fellowship programme, its staff, activities and procedures.

Group and individual training sessions shall help to hone their professional approach to research and writing and improve their understanding of European affairs, while meetings with a variety of journalists, editors, experts and politicians should inspire new approaches to understanding the topics they have chosen to research over the next few months, and provide them with an insight into the way in which media work in the European Union.

Click here to see the full schedule for the Vienna seminar.

The Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence was awarded on May 14 to ten journalists from around Southeast Europe, following their selection from over 80 applications received.

The chosen journalists are: Bogdan Asaftei from Romania, Sokol Ferizi from Kosovo, Milorad Ivanovic from Serbia, Davor Konjikusic from Croatia, Nikoleta Popkostadinova from Bulgaria, Nenad Radicevic from Serbia, Altin Raxhimi from Albania, Polina Slavcheva from Bulgaria, Bojana Stanisic from Montenegro and Eleonora Veninova from Macedonia.

They will participate until the end of the year in an intensive programme of training, research and reporting, beginning with a week-long seminar in Vienna on May 27. Information on their experiences will be regularly posted on the Fellowship’s website.

For more information about the Fellowship, contact programme manager Anna McTaggart, anna@birn.eu.com

Journalists selected to participate in the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence will benefit from the involvement of two leading European newspapers in the programme.

Austrian daily Der Standard and German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung have kindly agreed to become the programme’s partners, offering fellows guidance and support at Fellowship seminars and during their research.

A committee has been appointed to judge applications for the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence and select up to ten journalists to participate in the 2007 programme. Later this year, based on the results of fellows’ research and reporting activities, it will make one journalist a special award to allow further professional development.

The committee’s permanent members, representing media in the Balkans and the European Union, are Alexandra Föderl-Schmid, editor-in-chief of the Austrian daily , Der Standard, Drago Hedl, editor of the Croatian weekly, Feral Tribune, Gordana Igric, director and editor-in-chief of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, Remzi Lani, executive director of the Albanian Media Institute, Christiane Schlötzer, deputy editor, foreign desk, of the German daily , Süddeutsche Zeitung and Wolfgang Wähner-Schmidt, editor-in-chief of Reuters Germany. This year’s expert member is Gerald Knaus, president of the European Stability Initiative.

For more information, visit selection committee page

The results of the selection shall be made public on May 14.