Journalist Wins Plaudit

An IWPR-trained journalist in Belgrade has won a prestigious press award for his outstanding work with the Serbian daily Danas over the last 12 months.

On June 9, Aleksandar Roknic was named the newspaper’s Journalist of the Year and presented with the Nikola Burzan award, named after a prominent Serbian journalist who died nine years ago. Roknic was singled out for his excellent reporting on justice-related issues.

Roknic, who has worked at Danas for eight years, was trained by IWPR in 2006 and has been reporting for IWPR’s international justice programme ever since.

In addition to covering war crimes trials in The Hague and Belgrade, he has written in-depth analytical reports on issues related to transitional justice in the Balkans.

Danas, established in 1997, is one of the few media outlets in Serbia which supports local NGO activities in the field of human rights and minorities protection.

"What I've learned with IWPR has helped me very much in my everyday work. Unlike the other media in the region, IWPR insists on absolute authenticity of sources used in an article - be it a document or a person who has information on certain issues.,” said Roknic.

“Everything has to be checked thoroughly, which is especially important when one reports on justice-related issues. I also learned a lot in terms of structuring my articles and developing different angles."

Merdijana Sadovic, IWPR’s Hague tribunal programme manager, said, “The award Aleksandar received means a great deal to us because we put a lot of effort into training local journalists in the region. The fact that he was rewarded for his excellent reporting on justice-related issues is even more important because it reflects the quality of training IWPR provides in this field."