“Using Big Data and Multimedia to Boost Quality and Independent Journalism in Albania” project, supported by EU, is being implemented by BIRN Albania.
The action aim to boost the skills and knowledge of young, mid-career and journalists working on a local level in the country, providing them with the mentoring, financial and technical support, as well as investing significant effort to secure high impact of their stories. In addition, the project foresees strong multimedia component in order to make qualitative and trustworthy Investigative journalism available to citizens.
Through this project, BIRN Albania will support 20 local journalists, both men and women, from the 12 regions of the country by involving them in different activities of the project:
Formal training to raise their capacities through data journalism and multimedia reporting training;
On-the-job training and mentoring for the production of 120 in-depth analytical stories, rich with data mined from the database developed by BIRN and visualised through infographics in order to make them accessible to a general audience;
By strengthening their networking with local NGOs and activists.
BIRN Albania will provide funds for 12 investigative reporters working in mainstream media and will offer them on-the-job training and mentoring on investigative techniques and how to dig new information through three main channels: documents obtained though freedom of information requests, human sources from both government and non-profit sector and electronic sources.
The topics for the 12 investigations will be selected through close consultations with civil society in three specific fields: Judiciary, Organised Crime and Public administration and financial management.
The action will provide formal training for 20 journalism students and young graduates from different journalism schools of Albania (Tirana, Elbasan and Shkodra) on topics related to data visualisation and multimedia reporting.
After the completion of the training, the project will support their production of 50 short video reports by young journalism and infographics with on-the-job training and mentoring from BIRN Albania. Finally, the action will result with the production of up to 120 data driven in-depth stories, at least 20 investigative stories, 12 in-depth videos, 50 visualisation stories and 1 TV documentary, reaching close to 1 million people in Albania who will be informed on government’s wrongdoings as well as on key topics of interest related to the EU integration process of Albania.
