On December 10, 2023, awards were given to the winners of the “Srđan Aleksić” Regional Journalist Award, this year based on the decision of the five-member jury, 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.
Bojana Jovanović, journalist and editor of the Krik portal from Belgrade, who received the “For Courage” award, thanked the organizers and emphasized that she does her job professionally and responsibly and will continue to do so.
Her texts, the jury stated, 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.
Rovčanin thanked the jury for recognizing the initial intention of the Database of Judicially Established Facts to be educational and pointed out that the award is an additional incentive for his future work. He also thanked all his colleagues and the editorial team.
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.
“Novosti 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 authors who write for this media are people of credibility and guardians of common sense in the region,” the jury stated.
A lot of quality nominations arrived this year, so we are free to say that the jury did not have an easy task this year either.
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).
This event was opened on Saturday, December 9, with a Revue of Documentaries about Human Rights, which was held in the Student Theatre, and was well attended. A panel was also organized as part of the show.
The ceremony of giving journalist awards was organized in Banja Luka on the International Human Rights Day – December 10.
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.
Photos: Dalibor Danilović
