Western Balkans

Fojo Media Institute has more than 50 years of experience promoting media freedom and supporting independent journalism worldwide. In the Western Balkans, Fojo has worked closely with local partners to strengthen professional media environments, support journalist networks, and respond to growing threats to media freedom. Building on this long-term engagement, a new regional project was launched in autumn 2025.

Media freedom across the Western Balkans is under increasing pressure. Journalists face persistent safety risks, precarious working conditions, digital threats, and rising levels of disinformation. This project responds to these challenges by creating a regional hub for collaboration, learning, and support, helping journalists adapt to a rapidly changing media landscape.

What we do

Led by Fojo Media Institute together with key regional partners, the project works to strengthen media freedom and improve journalists’ working conditions in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, and Kosovo.

A central component of the project is a training of trainers’ programme focused on journalist safety. By equipping selected media professionals with advanced safety knowledge and strong pedagogical skills, the project helps ensure that safety expertise is embedded locally and can be sustainably shared within national media communities.

The project also focuses on:

• Journalist safety and well-being
• Journalists working conditions
• Digital security and resilience
• Capacity-building and expirience exchange

In addition to the training of trainers programme, we deliver online training sessions tailored to the specific needs of media professionals in the region, support national-level training initiatives, and maintain a shared digital repository.

By strengthening skills, networks, and cooperation across borders, the project aims to increase journalists’ resilience, promote stronger protections for media workers, and contribute to a safer, more sustainable, and more collaborative media environment in the Western Balkans.

Previous years

Since the project’s inception, Fojo’s work in the Western Balkans has focused on addressing the sharply deteriorating working conditions for journalists in the region. Journalists in countries like Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia and Bosnia & Herzegovina regularly face harassment, political pressure, and threats to their safety — and local governments have offered limited protection.

Building on a 16-month pilot project begun in 2021, the initiative has scaled up efforts to work proactively — not just reactively — to reduce stress and burnout among media professionals and strengthen media environments over the long term. Central to this phase has been engaging media managers and owners, civil society organisations, and regional partners to develop policies and guidelines that improve legal, personal, digital, and psychological safety in participating newsrooms.

Activities have included webinars, workshops, study visits and individual mentorships, as well as support for participants to design and implement change projects within their organisations. The project has also highlighted best practices, emerging threats — such as digital targeting — and ongoing challenges to media freedom across the region.

Partners in the programme have included regional civil society organisations and trade unions, and the initiative has received support from the Swedish Institute.