Public service media from Balkan and Caucasus countries have met in the Albanian capital Tirana (20 to 21 November) to exchange best work practices and discuss how to build audience trust.

Representatives of Ombudsman institutions in Slovenia, Finland, Germany, and media professionals from ORF (Austria),  BBC (United Kingdom) and UNESCO shared experiences with more than 50 media professionals and senior managers from Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, the Serbian province of Vojvodina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Armenia, Georgia, and Ukraine.

The regional workshop was hosted by Albanian public broadcaster RTSH and was organized in cooperation with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe presence in Albania, and UNESCO as a follow-up to last year’s conference on ‘Public Service Media and the Citizen’ in Podgorica.

EBU Partnership Programme Senior Project Manager Radka Betcheva said the regional workshop provided an opportunity to review progress, to identify the remaining challenges and to mobilize resources. 

"Events like this are an ideal platform to exchange best practices and to invigorate Members to be proactive and build credibility and trust with audiences through implementing the public service values in the best possible way," said Ms Betcheva. “Accountability and transparency are fundamentals to building trust with audiences.”

The workshop was organized in the framework of a joint EBU-European Commission project for support of public service media in the EU accession countries and will be followed up by further activities.