By Rudie van Meurs

The second part of the course was attended by fourteen people – two less than the number by which we finished the first course. Jasminka Berisha changed her job within radio Prizren. Zlatko Velikic, a Serbian student-journalist from Orahovac, left for Belgrad and could not return in time.

Thanks to a generous donation from PRESS NOW, a Dutch NGO from and for journalists that supports independent media in southeastern Europe, we (Kees Schaepman and me) were happy to carry fourteen Sony portable MiniDisc recorders to Gjilani and Prizren. The equipment was meant as a gift for the radio-stations and enabled me in the same time to train the students in a highly professional way. So during the second course I instructed the young journalists how to use the MiniDisc recorders, I taught them how to record, to edit and how to make mini-documentaries. In fact we spent most of the week practicing with the recording equipment. And at the end of the week, indeed, the four groups in which our students were organized managed in making a start. So we listened to a test-broadcast about the civil registration process in and around Prizren. Our reporters visited Masmusi, a village near Prizren where the Turkish community refused to participate in the registration because the forms were not in the Turkish language. Afterwards the same reporters interviewed one of the civil servants of the OSCE in Prizren, in charge of the registration, and confronted him with the complaints of the Turkish community. The other mini documentaries were about the youth in Prizren, the life of the farmers in the Sharry Mountains and the search of women, missing their husbands and sons.
The documentaries were not faultless, but it was a start. At the end of the course I left the recorders to Radio Prizren(2), Radio Sharri(2), Free media Centre(1), Radio Besa(1), Radio Sua Reka(1), TV Kukes(1)The first day we started with a discussion about the impose of appearance of the newspaper Dita. The newspaper published an article about a Serb warcriminal working now under another name inside the policeforces of UNMIK in Pristina. Some days later the man was found dead. UNMIK accused Dita of irresponsible reporting and decided to close the newspaper for eight days. We discussed the affair on the basis of the Code of Bordeaux and we concluded that UNMIK did it in the wrong way and had no right to ban the newspaper.
Every day we spent discussing ethics in journalism. How a journalist has to behave her(him)self. We also discussed the organisation of journalism in the world, the tycoons Murdoch, Berlusconi, Time-Warner and others, and the phenomenon of info-tainment media.
We visited the new radio station Helix in Prizren, with well equiped radio and tv-studio’s. The owners, two brothers with audio-experience in Prizren, seem to be very comitted to make serious radio.
We did not succeed in paying a visit to a monastery in the centre of Prizren, where during eight months 48 Kosovo Serbs are cooped up.
At the end we developed ideas and made arrangements about the elections in september. The students promised me to collect names and programms from new political parties and candidates who intend to enter politics

The organisation and facilities in the OSCE-building were again excellent. I agree with my colleague Kees Schaepman about the shortcomings of the organisation by UNDP. We went to Pristina instead of Skopje – I hate people (an OSCE-driver) waiting for me in vain. I received my DSA on Wednesday instead of Sunday. But for the rest the second training was successful.

Rudie van Meurs
Herwijnen
14 June 2000