Azeri journalists among the winners of EU-funded Media project

As part of the EU-funded Media Neighbourhood project, BBC Media Action this week held a study tour and award ceremony in Brussels for 20 journalists from across 15 partner countries from the European Neighbourhood, marking with these events the end of the three-year project after having trained over 1,400 journalists and journalism students in their home countries.

Among the winners are two journalists from Azerbaijan: Aziz Karimov from Turan news agency and Elena Valiyeva from 1news.

Participants of the project presented their articles and reports  by the end of the programme  and the jury chose the best works.

During their stay, journalists met high-level EU officials and gained in-depth factual, institutional, political, social, economic, geographic and historic knowledge about the EU, to allow them to deliver fair, balanced, and objective coverage of EU related affairs in their home media organisations.

Overall, the two-day event reinforced the project’s network of journalists with the aim of strengthening professional reporting standards and ethics among journalists working for media across the Neighbourhood.  

Media Neighbourhood is a three-year training programme for journalists, editors and managers from broadcast, print and online. It is funded by the European Union and delivered by a consortium led by BBC Media Action.

The programme has two main aims:

• To strengthen the professional capacity of journalists, particularly in the areas of media independence and online media.

• To improve the reporting of EU social, economic and political policies within the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Caucasus.)

Coming from Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Moldova, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia and Ukraine, these journalists and their mentors form a central part of the Media Neighbourhood project which will come to an end on February 16th after having trained over 1,400 journalists and journalism students in their home countries.

The Media Neighbourhood Award winners visited various EU institutions and met important European decision makers. The two-day event reinforced the project’s network of journalists with the aim of strengthening professional reporting standards and ethics amongst journalists working for local media across the European Neighbourhood area.  

Jean-Michel Duffrène, Team Leader for Media Neighbourhood project said: “It was not only a great opportunity to meet all 20 winners and runners up from many different countries but it was also an opportunity to reinforce the media community who share the same journalistic values and ethics, a community which has been created by the project and as way to lay the foundations for improved journalistic practices.”

"Independent media can act as a catalyst for democratic changes and become a driving force for the transformation of a society where the voice of civil society can be freely expressed and respected. Media freedom, independent journalism and media ethics are key values of the European Union and of paramount importance within our borders and in the European Neighbourhood" stresses Andris Kesteris, Principal Adviser – Civil Society and Media, European Commission Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations. -02D-