One of the speakers at the Speak UP!2 Conference that took place on 20 May in Brussels was a journalist Jeta Xharra, Kosovo Director for Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.

In the statement for SEE Media Observatory portal, she points that the journalists from the Balkans face political and economical pressures.

Biography:

Jeta Xharra is one of the founders and Kosovo director of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN). She is also the leading anchor and editor of Life in Kosovo, the most-watched current affairs program broadcasted in prime-time on the Kosovar public TV station RTK. She began her career in journalism as fixer and local producer for BBC News and Channel 4 in 1998 and later became the manager of the BBC Kosovo Bureau. In 1999, she worked for BBC News in Albania and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and in 2003 she opened the office for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in Kosovo. She has completed an MA both in War Studies at King's College London (2000) and in Screenwriting from the London College of Printing (2002). Xharra has published articles in British newspapers such as the The Independent, the Economist, Sunday Telegraph and Jane's Intelligence Review. While in the UK, she worked for the Foreign News Planning Desk at the BBC World Service and at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. As director of BIRN Kosovo, she oversees a staff of about 50 staff all over Kosovo responsible for producing English publications such as Balkan Insight and Prishtina Insight, as well as products in local languages such as Justice in Kosovo, Life in Kosovo newspaper and the Court Monitoring Project. In 2012 Xharra won the SEEMO Award for Better Understanding in South East Europe.