Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (NUNS) and the US Embassy in Belgrade handed out annual awards for investigative journalism in electronic, print and online categories last night at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, on the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day. This was seventh national award for CINS reporters.
CINS journalist Anđela Milivojević won the award for excellence in investigative reporting for the story that showed over 20% of Jorgovanka Tabaković’s doctoral thesis is plagiarized. Tabaković is the Governor of the National Bank of Serbia. Her PhD is full of literally copied parts of other authors’ work without citing and quoting the source.
In explanation of the nomination, jury outlined that significant time was needed for data collection and analysis, and also noted the use of innovative methods.
The online media category award was shared with the investigation “Making a Killing: The 1.2 Billion Euro Arms Pipeline to Middle East”, published on websites of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and Guardian, in July 2016. Journalists who worked on the story were: Lawrence Marzouk (BIRN), Ivan Angelovski (BIRN), Miranda Patrucić (OCCRP), Atanas Čobanov (Bivol), Dušica Tomović (BIRN), Jelena Ćosić (BIRN), Jelena Svirčić, Lindita Cela (BIRN) and Paul Holcim (Czech Center for Investigative Journalism).
In the category of print media the winner is BIRN’s journalist Jelena Veljković with her story “Secret Vučić cafe”, published last year in the weekly Vreme.
For the best TV investigation jury declared Maja Nikolić’s “Progressive ‘bots’ from the Romanian ‘kitchen’” story, which was broadcasted on N1 television in January 2017.
This year 75 journalists with about 115 media articles and reports applied for the awards. Applications were considered by four jury members:
– Danica Vučenić, journalist of Insajder production
– Milorad Ivanović, editor in chief of the weekly Newsweek in Serbia
– Predrag Blagojević, editor in chief of the portal Južne vesti
– Peđa Obradović, producer at the TV N1.
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