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 Ethics course participants Eighteen participants from 11 south east European countries are writing a set of editorial guidelines designed to help journalists in the region navigate the complex ethical issues presented by online journalism. Brought together by the MediaCentar Sarajevo , representatives from Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, are now working together to produce a handbook on editorial ethics to be distributed throughout the region. Covering issues such as accuracy, fairness, privacy, consent, taste and decency, offence, impartiality, integrity, independence, and diversity, the group spent three days exploring how journalists should deal with some of the challenges thrown up by the growth of new media.
All have now returned to their countries are continuing to work on the guidelines using a specially developed version of Moodle, the open-source distance-learning tool . The project runs until the end of the year, with the participants completing monthly assignments.
They have just completed the first assignment on accuracy, adding case studies from their own countries. Their task is to continue to illustrate the issued faced by journalists with test cases and recommended courses of action.
A follow up face-to-face session will be held in Sarajevo in December when the team will edit the work of the previous months and present their findings with a view to the guidelines being published online and in hard copy.
Goran Todorovic, manager of the MediaCentar Sarajevo's Journalism Programme said he was delighted with how well the first session went.  "It was a brave experiment to bring so many journalists from such different backgrounds and expect them to work together. However, I was astonished at how professionally they treated the task and how quickly they bonded, not only as colleagues, but also as friends. This is going to be a unique collaborative process and the outcome with be extremely valuable to journalists throughout the region." 
"It was a brave experiment to bring so many journalists from such different backgrounds and expect them to work together. However, I was astonished at how professionally they treated the task and how quickly they bonded, not only as colleagues, but also as friends. This is going to be a unique collaborative process and the outcome with be extremely valuable to journalists throughout the region."
Course leader, David Brewer, who delivers media training on every continent , said the quality of the group was stunning.
“I had no idea that I would be working with such a highly-motivated group of solid, passionate, knowledgeable journalists. The selection process carried out by the MediaCentre Sarajevo and its SEENPM (South East European Network for the Professionalisation of the Media) was key. They brought together some of the best journalists I have ever worked with.” The project is funded by the Open Society Institute Network Media Programme and implemented jointly by the South East European Network for Professionalization of Media and Mediacentar Sarajevo.
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