Transparency International BiH (TIBiH) gave Mediacentar Sarajevo its 2006 News Integrity Award for Bosnia-Herzegovina for setting up an online database and education of journalists who cover corruption.

The award ceremony took place on 7 December at the Holiday Inn Hotel on the occasion of marking the 6th anniversary of TIBiH and International Anti-Corruption Day.
The award symbolizes media freedom and impetus to investigative reporting in BiH and is given to an organization which has given a great contribution to development of professional investigative reporting, says the award citation.
“TI BiH gave the News Integrity Award to an organization which made a huge contribution to further development of the profession by setting up an online database and educating a large number of journalists from BiH and the region of South East Europe,” said Boris Divjak, Chairman of the TIBiH Board of Directors.
As BiH continues to have a high crime and corruption rate, investigative journalists have a major and demanding task and this is why Mediacentar Sarajevo will continue to educate journalists with the aim of a more professional approach to these issues.
“Serious investigative work requires extraordinary professional effort in uncovering and analyzing relevant facts. Investigative reporting greatly helps expose organized crime and political corruption and the News Integrity Award represents gratitude to Mediacentar Sarajevo for giving a big impetus to development of professional and independent investigative reporting,” Boris Divjak said at the award ceremony.
“The Investigative Reporting Program which Mediacentar Sarajevo has successfully implemented for the second year now is designed to educate and train journalists in the area of investigative reporting, thus preparing them to act professionally and conscientiously in the interest of society. This goal will remain our most important task in the future,” said Saša Leković, Training Manager, as he received the award on behalf of Mediacentar Sarajevo.
Mediacentar received the News Integrity Award for three projects:
-Idoc/Research and Documentation Center is an online database containing several hundred thousand articles from daily, weekly and specialized newspapers, news, business and legal information and documents from BiH. Idoc also offers press clipping services and monitoring of print and broadcast media from BiH, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro.
- NetNovinar.org is a unique education portal in the region providing educational news material, information on training programs and the possibility of networking journalists from the region in a journalist directory and large mailing list.
- Training for journalists
NetNovinar Training Center has organized a large number of training programs for journalists. NetNovinar Training Center’s most important project is the five-month Investigative Reporting Program: Stories on Organized Crime Issues, attended by numerous journalists from the region.
Some of the participants in the Program’s cycles held so far have achieved enviable results in investigative work:
- Đorđe Padejski won the NUNS Investigative Journalism Award (in the young journalists/print media category).
- Andreje Kasanić’s story “Money Laundry will be Punishable Again,” which she worked on during the Program, was published on the front page of one of Croatia’s highest circulation dailies, “Večernji list.”
- Thanks to outstanding efforts during the Program, Mirjana Jevtović became a journalist of the multi-awarded investigative program “Insider” on TV B92, Belgrade.
-An investigative story by the journalists Danijela Vukosavljević and Dušan Telesković made during the Program was published on the front page of the daily “Politika.”
Training for journalists is organized by Mediacentar Sarajevo in cooperation with the Investigative Journalism Center, Zagreb.
Note: Photographs are carried from the daily “Oslobođenje.”