International success for Montenegrin mobile journalist

Success in our training programmes is measured in many ways but one of the most rewarding is reading or watching powerful stories produced by young journalists who have benefitted from our courses.

One such reporter is Darko Bulatović from the broadcaster RTCG in Montenegro who we trained in mobile journalism on the project Building “Citizens’ Trust”.

One of the stories he produced following the training turned into an online hit, viewed 1.6 million times on Facebook alone in a country with a population of 630,000.

It was one of three he submitted to the European Association of Regional Television’s Prix CIRCOM Regional 2022 awards. He won first prize in the video journalism category.

It radically changed my visual storytelling techniques.

New level

The story features a six-year-old Roma girl who was given a home along with her older sister and two brothers by Slobodan Stanojevic. They had met at a centre for human trafficking in Niksic in Montenegro where 55-year-old Slobodan was working as a security guard. The children’s father had been jailed for forcing them to beg on the streets. Slobodan has since fostered them and they have become a family.

After attending the mobile journalism workshop, Darko became the first journalist at his television station to start filming stories on his smartphone. In May 2021, he took part in a course for adapting content for multiple platforms to improve the visual quality of his stories as well as increasing his audience reach.

Darko says the Thomson Media programme took his work to a new level.

“It radically changed my visual storytelling techniques,” he says. “I am very thankful for the ongoing support during and after the project.”

Multi-platform and mobile journalism

Building “Citizens’ Trust” in the Western Balkans media was a project aimed at young and mid-career journalists that introduced them to the latest techniques in multi-platform and mobile journalism.   

Designed for local and regional media where resources can be scarce, the training encouraged journalists to broaden their skills to produce varied content, engaging and growing the audience for their organisations’ news content as a result.

Restrictions resulting from the pandemic meant the programme was delivered virtually through e-workshops and 12 online self-paced courses – six for mobile journalism and six on adapting content for multiple platforms produced in three Balkan languages.

Trainer Aleksandar Manasiev provided mentoring and support: “Personally, I think the project will have a long-lasting effect,” he says. “We have tried and succeeded to a great extent in changing the way of thinking of many individuals. By changing the mind-set and creatively pushing them out of their comfort zone we managed to strengthen the self-confidence of many journalists.”