Based on the decision of the five-member jury, the winners of the “Srđan Aleksić” Regional Journalist Award for 2023 are Bojana Jovanović in the category “For Courage”, Haris Rovčanin in the category “For Contribution to the Community” and Portal Novosti in the category “For the Media”.
The “Srđan Aleksić” Regional Journalist Award is given for professional and socially responsible media reporting that results in concrete benefits for people and communities (contributes to reconciliation, protection of human rights, inclusion of marginalized and vulnerable groups, gender equality, rule of law, culture of dialogue, fight against hatred speech and fake news), and for the demonstrated journalistic courage.
Convincingly, the award “For Courage” goes to Bojana Jovanović, journalist and editor of the Krik portal from Belgrade. Her texts precisely expose the links between organized crime and people at the top of the state structures. Their exposure, according to the jury, provides a frightening insight into Serbian political reality – that organized crime is not only connected to the state structures, but also led and protected from its highest levels.
In the category “For Contribution to the Community”, the project of Haris Rovčanin, a journalist from the Detektor portal from Sarajevo, stood out for the invested time, effort and results, which exceeds the reach of usual journalistic work. He made the Database of Judicially Established Facts about the War in BiH extremely educational, comprehensive and lively, adapted to the visual sensibility of young generations. As the jury stated in the explanation, in our nationalism-burdened societies, his work represents a huge and lasting contribution to the fight against manipulations of the wartime past.
In the category “For the Media”, Portal Novosti from Zagreb stood out among the nominees this year, which quality of content is constant, consistent and professional. This portal is a socially engaged media with top authors that every week brings texts that really affect a society, but also the region as a whole, the jury stated in its decision.
In addition to the winners, journalists Hrvoje Šimičević and Josip Bohutinski from Croatia, Bojan Tončić and Darko Šper from Serbia, Kristina Perić and the portals Buka and Prometej from Bosnia and Herzegovina were ranked very highly this year.
This year’s competition for the “Srđan Aleksić” Regional Award received 41 nominations for 31 journalists and 10 media outlets, which were decided by a jury consisting of: Ana Hegediš Lalić (Serbia), Slavica Lukić and Boris Pavelić (Croatia), Vladan Mićunović (Montenegro) and Borislav Kontić (Bosnia and Herzegovina).
The award ceremony will be organized on the International Human Rights Day – December 10, in Banja Luka, as part of the “Srđan Aleksić Days” event.
The journalist award is announced by the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Banja Luka, the Network for Building Peace, the Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina, the Montenegro Media Institute and the Association for the Promotion of Media Culture, Art and Tolerance “Lupiga – the World through Ordinary Eyes” from Croatia.
