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 An eight-month distance learning course in editorial ethics for online journalists has been organised by the Mediacentar Sarajevo , with the first face-to-face meeting between the 16 course participants from 11 countries being held in Bosnia.
The programme aims to equip a group of online media professionals from SEENPM, the South East European Network for Professionalization of Media with the knowledge and skills they need to become trainers in tjournalistic ethics and thereby build the training capacity in the region. Those taking part come from Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Hungary, Macedonia and Albania.
The project is planned as a long-term, systematic programme employing e-learning (intensive work online, via a specialised software platform developed by Mediacentar staff) and face-to-face sessions.
It is the second time Mediacentar has organised an ethics course for online journalists funded by SEENPM, the last was held in April 2006 and was run by David Brewer of Media Ideas International Ltd , the founder and editor of Media Helping Media . The output was the draft of the first ethics guidelines for online journalists ever developed in South East Europe. This second course will build on that work in order to develop a much more detailed set of guidelines.
The reason for providing an ethics workshop for online journalists is that the growth of citizen journalism and user generated content (UGC) is creating many fresh issues that need to address.
More and more media organisations are engaging with their audiences as never before and the media is increasingly turning to the web in order to research information. This offers new challenges and raises many ethical issues for media operations broadcasting online or receiving submitted content from an online audience.
Online newsrooms in the region lack in-house training to give their editors and reporters the necessary knowledge and skills to produce online content in an ethically sound manner.
So far there have not been any specialised training programmes on the ethical issue facing online journalists in the South East Europe region and many editors are not aware of the issues facing their staff and are unable to train them.
 The main objectives of the course are to create a network of trainers in the field of journalistic internet ethics and publish a set of guidelines for journalists working in the region. 
The main objectives of the course are to create a network of trainers in the field of journalistic internet ethics and publish a set of guidelines for journalists working in the region.
The programme features two face-to-face training sessions (each three days long), and eight months of online learning on a platform developed by Mediacentar Sarajevo. This blended-learning model is extremely time and cost-efficient because it reduces the amount of time the journalists are away from their newsrooms. Topics covered include accuracy, balance, fairness, objectivity, taste, decency and offence.
Those taking part will also be coached in how to become trainers, with the online learning part of the programme covering issues such as: - Knowing the audience (those you are training)
- Knowing their needs (how far they have already progressed and what their training needs assessment is)
- Knowing your subject (only working from real examples and tried and tested solutions)
- Engaging with the audience (lots of interactivity and group sessions)
- Drawing on their experience (find out what they have been through)
- Incorporating their wisdom (learn from them and bring relevant point into the course)
- Growing together (treating trainees as serious professionals)
The course, which starts on Monday 23 June with the first face-to-face session in Sarajevo, involves 16 duty editors, news editors and journalists from 11 SEENPM countries.
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