Team

Nafisa Hasanova - before joining RSF Nafisa worked on Transdniestrian settlement process for the Finnish Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) Martti Ahtisaari Centre. From 2012 to 2014 she worked as policy officer for Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia at APRODEV, now ACT Alliance EU in Brussels.

In 2008-2012 Nafisa worked as project manager EUCAM (EU Central Asia Monitoring) at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS and FRIDE) in Brussels. Nafisa, holds an MA in Intercultural Communication and European Studies from the University of Applied Studies in Fulda, Germany. She completed a BA in English Philology at the Samarkand State Institute of Foreign Languages in Uzbekistan and gained working experience as a visiting fellow at CEPS in 2007 and through an internship at the German Bundestag (2006).

Tanja Maksić has been a member of the BIRN Serbia team since 2010. She develops and manages projects in the field of media policy and good governance. Tanja also conducts research and is responsible for the design, theme definition and methodology of research, for writing policy reports and recommendations, and for advocacy work.

Although she studied journalism, Tanja has specialised in media monitoring, especially content analysis of media production and the media economy. She is particularly involved in advocating the transparent financing of the media. Tanja graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, and before BIRN she worked for the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) and as an associate of the Media Center Belgrade.

Vladimir Kostic is an investigative journalist working on stories about public financing, corruption and crime.

He has worked for almost eight years for the Center for Investigative Journalism in Serbia (CIJS), as a reporter and deputy editor-in-chief. Along with his colleagues, Vladimir has won two awards for best online investigative stories, Balkan fact checking award and European Press Prize in category of investigative journalism.

In 2017 he was selected for Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence.

Bojana Barlovac is a PhD candidate at the Belgrade University's Faculty of Political Science (Culture and Media Department) with focus on mediatization of politics and media framing. She is involved in a series of media projects as a researcher, journalist or consultant.

She worked as Serbia country editor and regional associate editor for BIRN's flagship website Balkan Insight from 2009-2015. Furthermore, she serves as a lecturer at web journalism seminars for an association of Serbian journalists. Barlovac spent a year as a visiting scholar at the University of Tennessee in the US, where she focused on gender studies and media. Previously, she worked as a news reporter for two of the largest media outlets in Serbia at the time - TV B92 and Fox Television. Born and lives in Belgrade, Serbia.

Ana Novaković is a journalist from Serbia with experience in electronic and print media.

Ana Novakovic joined BIRN Serbia in 2012, where she has mainly worked on investigative stories and databases. Ana has been named as finalist for the National Investigative Journalism Award for 2013 and 2014 by the Independent Association of Journalists in Serbia. Also, as a part of BIRN Serbia team she won Jug Grizelj Award for investigative journalism for 2014.

Ana is co-author of data journalism handbook Journalism based on data: Tips, Tricks and Tutorials. She participated in various seminars and was trainer at journalism workshops. During her journalism studies at the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Belgrade, Ana interned at Radio Belgrade 1, part of the Serbian Broadcasting Corporation, RTS and worked as a journalist and host in students radio production.

Natalija Jovanovic is Media Researcher from Serbia. Her primary focus has been public spending in media sector.

She graduated from Faculty of Political Sciences 2016. During her journalism studies Natatalija worked as an intern at BIRN researching media privatization and public tenders for media. She is currently doing master program Social Science and Computing at the University of Belgrade. 

Lada Vučenović joined the BIRN Serbia team in January 2010. As project coordinator, she handles all operational and project matters in the field of media policy and good governance, and also works as a researcher.

She graduated from Faculty of Organizational Sciences at the University of Belgrade, where she majored in marketing management and public relations. Before joining BIRN, she volunteered at several different organisations: Executive Group, ABS Holdings and Group for Security (G4S).

Olaf Steenfadt - heads the "Media Ownership Monitor" project and the "Journalism Trust Initiative" at the press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders, RSF. For many years, he has been engaged as a consultant and coach in media development cooperation. Mandates of international organizations and NGOs lead him primarily to Southeast Europe and the Arab world. He previously worked for national German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF in various roles, including as a radio and TV presenter, investigative reporter, domestic and foreign correspondent, as well as in format development and corporate communication. Olaf is a member of the "High-level Expert Group on Fake News and Online Disinformation" of the European Commission and of the "Committee of Experts on Quality of Journalism in the Digital Age" at the Council of Europe. He teaches frequently at universities in Germany and Europe.

BIRN Serbia’s mission is to advance the country’s political, social and economic transition through the provision of objective and quality information, the training of journalists, and providing assistance for institutional reforms and the public as Serbia moves forward.

BIRN Serbia operates at the forefront of efforts to professionalise the media and civil society, empowering responsible local voices, supporting professional reporting, facilitating dialogue between the most important actors in society, and providing them with the skills needed to foster good governance and public accountability.

BIRN Serbia’s primary fields of operation are media development and good governance.

Reporters Without Borders (Reporter Sans Frontières, RSF) was founded in Montpellier (France) in 1985 by four journalists. It is registered in France as a non-profit organization and has consultant status at the United Nations and UNESCO. RSF advocates for media freedom, supports independent media and protects endangered journalists worldwide. Its missions are

• To continuously monitor attacks on freedom of information worldwide;
• To denounce any such attacks in the media;
• To act in cooperation with governments to fight censorship and laws aimed at restricting freedom of information;
• To morally and financially assist persecuted journalists, as well as their families.
• To offer material assistance to war correspondents in order to enhance their safety.

Since 1994, the German section is active in Berlin. Although the German section works closely with the International Secretariat in Paris to research and evaluate media freedom worldwide, it is organizationally and financially independent. In that role, it has applied for a grant at the federal German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development – in order to finance the Media Ownership Monitor project.

The Global Media Registry (GMR) collects, compiles and provides – either publicly available or self-reported – datasets and contextual information on media outlets around the world.

In doing so, the objective is to enhance transparency, accountability and responsibility in the information space. Thus, the GMR facilitates better choices and decision making, both algorithmic and human, of all stakeholders. These may include every citizen and consumer, regulators and donors, as well as the private sector – for example advertisers and intermediaries (a. k. a. platforms and distributors).

By providing this public service as a social enterprise, the Global Media Registry contributes to the advancement of the freedoms of information and expression at large.

It was founded as a spin-off from the Media Ownership Monitor project, which it now operates as a non-for-profit LLC registered under German law.