The EU Investigative Journalism Awards in the Western Balkans and Turkey, were presented for the fourth time, and at the ceremony held last night in Belgrade, five prizes were awarded – two third, two second and one first prize which was awarded to the editorial staff of the Crime and Corruption Reporting Network KRIK.

The jury for the awards is made up of media experts, including experts from the consortium or others from the broad network of partners, such as editors, members of the academia and journalists of merit.

“The jury had a difficult decision to choose three out of 17 applications and a total of 40 texts, but they decided to award two second and two third prizes due to the quality of this year’s applications”, stated the chairwoman of the jury, Snježana Milivojević, professor of the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade.

Narrative elements, data journalism and the use of new tools are some of the qualities of this year’s awarded texts, the jury added.

The annual EU regional awards for investigative journalism in the Western Balkans and Turkiye aim to celebrate and promote the outstanding achievements of investigative journalists, as well as to improve the visibility of quality journalism in these regions.

Manuel Munteanu, Head of Information, Communication and Media and Deputy Head of the Political Section of the EU Delegation to Serbia, attended the award ceremony and pointed out that challenging times open up space for misinformation and fake news, and that is why it is very important that there are strong and capable journalists who invest special efforts in researching topics important to society.

“This is a profession that requires strong integrity, values and often courage”, Munteanu said.

From 2023, the EU Award for Investigative Journalism is organized by Thomson Media, Independent Union of Journalists and Media Workers of North Macedonia and the Association of Journalists / Gazeteciler Cemiieti from Turkey.

The awarding is done once a year in six countries of the Western Balkans and Turkey. The first award for investigative journalism in 2022 went to KRIK for a series of articles about the criminal group of Darko Šarić.

The second award is shared by CINS for a research series on the financing of political parties  and Jelena Zorić, a journalist of the Balkan Research Network (BIRN) for two articles on medical malpractice in psychiatry.

The third place is shared by the team of the Centre for Investigative Journalism of Serbia (CINS) for the series of articles The Roads of Serbian Weapons  and the journalist of NIN Vuk Cvijić for the series of articles on organized crime.