BiH Investigative Stories Get World’s Attention
Contaminated food. Shady dealings by politicians. Law enforcement officials breaking the very laws they are paid to enforce. These are just some of the stories that earned Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Center for Investigative Reporting (CIN) international recognition and the Online News Association’s (ONA) Journalism Award for best investigative story. The award, in the small organization website category, was presented in Toronto last October for CIN’s series on widespread problems with food safety. Winners in other categories included Wired Magazine, the Associated Press, and the Washington Post.
CIN also recently won the Journalism Integrity Award in BiH from Transparency International, for its "uncompromised and systematic work gathering and analysis of information [which] has provided the citizens of BiH the possibility to learn if the officials they elect actually work for their best interests.”
"It's an honor to be mentioned with these other fine organizations and this proves that Bosnian journalists are doing some of the best work in the world in investigative reporting," said Svjetlana Celic, CIN's deputy managing editor. "Our goal was simple. We wanted to find out if our food is safe and we now know it is not."
Early on, CIN had a rocky start. Editors complained that the stories were too American and too long. But as time went on, CIN learned how to better target its reporting to local readers. And the stories began to have an impact, as government agencies started acting on CIN reports.
An international judge was fired when CIN uncovered a background of abuse of authority. A story on illegal workers led to a crackdown on employers who hired illegally. CIN wrote about a high- ranking law enforcement official who was involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident. With the statute of limitations about to expire, reporters doggedly followed the story until officials were prompted to act. The agent was eventually sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison.
Earlier this year, CIN was also awarded the Global Shining Light Award by the Global Network of Investigative Journalists for its investigative series on energy traders.
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| CIN paid a lab to test food for contaminents |
BiH citizens were shocked to learn the food they eat can make them sick |
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