PCi’s Media Award for showcasing multi-ethnic co-existence in Kosovo were handed out on 3 March 2022 in Pristina to journalists and media who participated in the category of Albanian language media content.
The Media Award was created as a follow-up activity initiated by PCi’s Media Consultation Dialogues, which constitute the backbone of media work in PCi’s Balkans programme. They bring together media professionals from Kosovo and Serbia to analyse problems and seek solutions to improve the quality of reporting and to battle divisive narratives. A repeated conclusion of these discussions was that there is a lack of stories about ordinary life, about living together, about peaceful multi-ethnic coexistence, both in Kosovo and Serbia. The media picture that Albanians and Serbs get about one another from Kosovar and Serbian media is almost exclusively bleak, black and white – and rich with divisive narratives.
By establishing an annual Media Award, PCi wanted to incentivize, promote, and reward media content from Kosovo and Serbia that explore themes related to the co-existence of communities. The Media Award Call for Application was launched last spring. The Call for Application can be accessed here.
Further to the Belgrade event which awarded media content in the Serbian language, the Award Ceremony for contributions in Albanian was held in Pristina on 3 March. The award jury was made up of three distinguished Kosovo journalists, Brikenda Rexhepi from Koha Television, Gentiana Begolli from the national broadcaster Radio Television of Kosovo, and Ismet Hajdari, from Agence France-Presse (AFP) Kosovo Bureau.
The first prize in the audio-visual category was awarded to Ardiana Thaçi for her story “Heshtja qe vrau” (The silence that killed), which can be accessed here. In the written category, the first prize went to Fitim Gashi on “Të pastrehët e pandemisë” (The Homeless of the Pandemic).
The jury members emphasised the importance of an award which motivates journalists in divided societies. They noted that “This is the only award of this kind in the entire region. It encourages journalists to present the reality between communities which is vital for a healthy social coexistence, without anger and hatred.”
