Editors and country reporters

Editors

Marius Dragomir
Publications Editor, OSF-Media Program

Marius Dragomir worked for around 17 years as a journalist, first eight years for various Romanian media, and then for international media. He was a media critic with the Prague Business Journal. In 2002, Mr. Dragomir was a Senior Journalism Knight Fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Atlantic Council of the United States, where he completed a thesis on the reform of the media in post-communist Europe. He signed media columns in publications such as Czech Business Weekly and wrote for several other publications, and also conducted field training for Transitions online. Email: marius.dragomir at osf-eu.org

Dr. Mark Thompson
Website and Reports Editor, OSF-Media Program

Mark Thompson is the author of Forging War. The Media in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (1994, 1999), and the co-editor, with Monroe E. Price, of Forging Peace. Intervention, Human Rights and the Management of Media Space (2002). Mr. Thompson has been a media analyst and political officer with two United Nations peacekeeping missions, and was also the first head of media development for the OSCE mission in Croatia. He has acted as a media development consultant for various governmental and non-governmental organisations. Email: mark.thompson at osf-eu.org

Country Reporters

Albania

Ilda Londo
Project Coordinator, Albanian Media Institute

Ilda Londo has worked as a research coordinator at the Albanian Media Institute (AMI) since 2001. Recently Ms. Londo has been dealing with various research projects in which AMI has been involved, including research on media ownership and concentration, ethnic minorities coverage, media landscape surveys, broadcasting development trends, and self-regulation and ethical issues. Email: ilda at institutemedia.org

Partner organisation: Albanian Media Institute

Bulgaria

Assya Kavrakova
Program Director, Open Society Foundation - Sofia

Assya Kavrakova is the Director of the European Policies and Civic participation Program at the Open Society Institute – Sofia. She has a Master’s degree in Law and a Master’s degree in European integration from St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia. She has worked as Public Policies and Outreach Director at the Democracy Network Program (DemNet) of the United States Agency for International Development. She was also the Executive Director of Transparency without Borders Association, the national branch office of Transparency International. Ms. Kavrakova is leading the analytical and research activity of the European Policy Initiative at the OSI – Sofia. She is a member of the Ethical Commission on Electronic Media in Bulgaria. Email: akavrakova at osi.bg

Partner organisation: Open Society Foundation – Sofia

Czech Republic

Eva Rybková

Events Manager, PASOS Secretariat, Policy Association for an Open Society (PASOS)

Eva Rybková is a communications professional and journalist who has worked on a wide range of international NGO projects, primarily focused on journalism training and media policy. In 1996 she was Project Co-ordinator of the Open Society Institute Regional Media Programme, overseeing a continuing education project for directors of OSI regional media programmes from Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS. Ms. Rybková has worked as a project manager and trainer for Transitions Online, where she managed the Diversity Reporting Project. She has also worked in a variety of events management roles, and as a journalist and producer for Czech and international media, including ABC News, Associated Press Television News, TV Nova, BBC World Service, and Czech Radio.

Italy

Gianpietro Mazzoleni
Professor of Sociology of Mass Communication and Political Communication, University of Milan

Gianpietro Mazzoleni is Professor of Sociology of Communication and of Political Communication at the University of Milan. He is Post-Graduate Coordinator of the MSc Course in Social and Political Communication. Prof. Mazzoleni is co-founder and editor of the scholarly journal Comunicazione Politica, and serves in the editorial boards of the European Journal of Communication and Political Communication. His main research interests are in the areas of mass communication, media policy and political communication, and he has co-authored several books on these topics. Email: gianpietro.mazzoleni at unimi.it

Giulio Vigevani
Lecturer, University of Milan Bicocca

Giulio Enea Vigevani is Associated Professor of Constitutional Law and Information Law at the University of Milano-Bicocca, Faculty of Law. He has written books and articles on electoral law, media law and European law. Email: giulio.vigevani at unimib.it

Partner organization: Eurovisioni, the International Festival of Cinema and Television

Kosovo

Vjollca Krasniqi

Lecturer in Sociology and Philosophy, University of Prishtina. 

Vjollca Krasniqi has a M.Sc. degree in Gender, Development, and Globalization from the London School of Economics. She has written on political, social, and gender developments in the Balkans. Her recent publications include “Imagery, Gender and Power: The Politics of Representation in Post-War Kosova” in Feminist Review (2007) and “Gender and the Politics of Peacekeeping” in Gender and Identity: Theories from the and/or on Southeastern Europe (2006). Ms. Krasniqi was a researcher and contributor also to Bending the bow published by the Open Society Institute in 2002.

Lithuania

Artūras Račas

Editor-in-chief of Business Desk, Baltic News Service (BNS)
Arturas Racas has been working at the Baltic News Service news agency as Business desk editor-in-chief since 2001. He also has been the Lithuanian correspondent for news agency AFP since 1998.  A graduate from Vilnius University History faculty, Mr. Racas worked as a parliamentary correspondent/columnist at the Lithuanian daily Lietuvos Rytas from 1993 to 1999. During his 15-year-long career as a journalist Mr. Račas also worked as head of Lithuanian television news department and editor-in chief of internet portal TVNET. In 1990-1993 Racas worked as assistant to the vice-chairman of the parliament, and was a member of Lithuania's negotiation team during the talks with the Russian Federation about the withdrawal of the Soviet army from Lithuania.
Mr. Račas participated in OSCE mission in Chechnya (1997) and Bosnia-Herzegovina (1997, 1997, 1998). In 2003-2005 he was a member of the Advisory Group and the Jury of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, and since January 2007 he is a member of the board of Transparency International, Lithuania. EMAIL: arturasracas at takas.lt.

Partner organisation: Lithuanian Journalism Centre

Republic of Macedonia

Vesna Šopar
Professor, Political Science Faculty

Vesna Šopar is Professor of Communication Theory and Political Communication at the European University - Republic of Macedonia. She has conducted numerous research projects and published several articles on the media policies and media system changes in Republic of Macedonija. Mrs. Sopar was Head of the Centre for Communications, Media and Culture. Email: sopar AT isppi.ukim.edu.mk
Partner organisation: Foundation Open Society Institute - Macedonia

Ranko Vujović

Ranko Vujović graduated from the Philological Faculty, Department of World Literature and Theory of Literature, at Belgrade University. He started his journalist carrier at Montenegro State TV. Then, he worked for some 15 years with various foreign and local media. Since 2000, he has worked as an Executive Director of Union of Independent Electronic Media of Montenegro (UNEM). UNEM was the organisation that initiated the process of media reform in Montenegro. He is member of the Broadcasting Council that manages Montenegro’s independent broadcasting regulator.

Poland

Andrzej Krajewski
Director, Press Freedom Monitoring Centre

Andrzej Krajewski is media consultant, freelance journalist and translator. He was a Fulbright scholar (1986-1987), Polish TV and radio correspondent in Washington, D.C (1990-1994), editor in chief of Przeglad Reader's Digest (1994-2001), and vice-president of the Polish Journalists' Association (1998-2004). He authored books about martial law Poland, US Solidarity emigrees and the Polish cold war hero, col. Ryszard Kuklinski. Email: krajewski.andrzej at gmail.com, www.andrzejkrajewski.com

Romania

Manuela Preoteasa
Managing partner, Euractiv Romania

Manuela Preoteasa is managing partner of the Brussels-based website EurActiv.ro, which covers EU policies, and the HotNews.ro news portal, which covers Romanian affairs. She is also an associated professor with the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences at the University of Bucharest and a media researcher with the Center of Independent Journalism (CJI) in Bucharest. A former Marshal Memorial Fellow in 2006, Mrs. Preoteasa authored several studies on media. They include "Romania: two television networks, two different realities," which was published in Indicator of Public Interest: TV Prime Time Domestic News – Monitoring and analysis of TV news in ten SEENPM countries (Media Plan Institute, Sarajevo, September 2007); and the chapter on Romania in Media markets in SEE and EU accession countries – Media ownership patterns and their effects on media freedom and pluralism (Mirovni Institute, Ljubljana, SEENPM network, 2004). She was also the editor of Media: Business Ethics, Ethics, of Business, published by the CJI in 2006. A founder of the Association of Online Press Editors, Mrs. Preoteasa also worked as a journalist with the national TV station Antena 1 and the business weekly Capital.

Partner organisations: Center for Independent Journalism
and Media Monitoring Agency - Academia Catavencu

Slovakia

Rastislav Kužel

Executive Director, MEMO 98

Ivan Godársky

MEMO 98

Rasto Kužel completed his studies at the Philosophical Faculty of the Comenius University in Bratislava in 1994, and spent a year at the State University of New York, Oswego. After finishing his studies, Mr. Kužel worked as an aide to the Defense Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Bratislava, Slovakia. For the Slovak 1998 parliamentary elections, Mr. Kužel was recruited by the National Democratic Institute to work as Deputy Director of Elections and Media Related Programs. He was one of the founders of the media monitoring organization MEMO 98, which has been monitoring the media since 1998 and has played a crucial role in improving the standards of journalism in Slovakia. Since 1998, Mr. Kužel has been working as MEMO 98 executive director. He has also been working as media analyst, consultant and trainer, participating in more than twenty election observation missions or media projects in the framework of OSCE/ODIHR, UN, IFES, NED, NDI and IMS. Email: kuzel at memo98.sk

Partner organisations: MEMO 98
and Open Society Foundation - Slovakia