Bosch Alumni Network - Driving Change

Participants collect
“dos and don’ts” for
the media coverage
on migration.
Dóra Diseri
is an alumna of the program
“Medien-Mittler zwischen
den Völkern.” She currently
works as project manager
for “Reporters in the Field”
at n-ost.
When the iac Berlin announced the first
Dušan, based in Belgrade, was our team
and to enable better information flow
open call for ideas within the Media Cluster
member “in the field” who found the best
between media in various EU coun tries.
of the Bosch Alumni Network in spring
locations in town and organized a tour to
As a result of the several panels and
2017, we immediately filled out the appli-
the refugee center in Krnjača. Meanwhile,
intense discussions, we wrote an advisory
cation form and were thrilled when we
all of us tried to find and invite experts and
paper for journalists and NGO workers.
Photo: Dóra Diseri
found out our project had been chosen by
the jury. However, we soon realized this
was only the beginning of our journey and
the hardest part was yet to come. With all
of us working busy jobs, we skyped and
chatted between assignments.
Ivan tried to keep the whole group together
by delegating tasks and briefing Lisa,
who — together with the iac Berlin — provided
huge support to us. They also enabled
us to hold a face-to-face meeting in Berlin
where we had time to finalize the speakers’
list and choose the participants from the
many alumni who had applied for the
conference.
journalists from the respective countries
along the “refugee route.” Our aim was
to have at least two representatives from
each of those countries between Turkey
and Germany: one from the media and one
from the governance or NGO sector. We
wanted to enable an exchange that wasn’t
just cross-border, but also cross-sectoral
— where we could analyze the role of the
media in the social and political debates
about the so-called “refugee crisis.”
In the end, more than 60 people from 21
countries came together in Belgrade to
discuss current migration issues and problems
plaguing the reporting on refugees
After three days our conference ended,
but the discussions did not. We are still
planning to open a platform for sharing
information and experience, debunking
fake news and understanding processes
in a transnational and cross-sectoral
environment. This is because we believe
covering crises shouldn’t mean focusing
solely on “big events,” but also staying on
the story when the “mainstream media”
has already left.
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