Aleksandar Manasiev is an award-winning investigative journalist from North Macedonia. He has been working as a professional journalist since 2003, mostly in print media in North Macedonia and as a foreign correspondent for several news media outlets.

For almost two years he also worked as an investigative TV reporter. Since 2016, Aleksandar has been the Editor-in-Chief of Vidi Vaka, medium for the digital generation, through which he successfully implements new forms of digital storytelling. His articles and video stories have been published in more than 50 news outlets such as The Guardian, BBC, Deutsche Welle, Forbes Croatia, Jutarnji List, Ekonom:east etc.

He also works as a trainer for digital and investigative journalism. He is an enthusiast in the field of documentary film-making, working as a scriptwriter or a director in four documentaries during the past few years.

Aleksandar Manasiev

Dr, Blerton Abazi is a PhD graduated with highest distinction (summa-cum-laude) on Cybersecurity and 

Information Systems from Corvinus University of Budapest. He is a cybersecurity professional with more 

than 13 years of outstanding experience on building information security systems, recommending 

security controls, and evaluating inherent security characteristics of technology and architectures used 

to protect the high-value asset and its interconnected systems. With his result-oriented approach he has 

been leading and implemented different projects supported by national and international organizations, 

with relevant experience on implemented technical projects such as Digital Transformation, 

cybersecurity infrastructure, MIS, Information Security Standards etc. Prior to his industry-oriented 

approach Blerton is a dedicator Information System, Cyber Security and Business Informatics professor 

with more than 10 years of teaching experience as university professor and trainer on the ICT, 

Cybersecurity and Information Systems. In 2021, Blerton was a Cybersecurity Fellow at Cranfield 

University, the Defense Academy of the United Kingdom (Shrivenham Campus). 

Blerton Abazi

Donna  Leinwand Leger is the former managing editor of USA TODAY, president of DC Media Strategies and senior advisor to Stanton Communications.

As managing editor of USA Today, Leinwand Leger led the digital transformation of the USA TODAY Network's breaking news operations and is adept at the strategic use of digital media for impactful storytelling. As a reporter, Leinwand Leger covered breaking news, Congress, regulatory agencies and international crimes and disasters. Her reporting assignments took her around the world to conflict zones, including Iraq, Israel and Palestine, as well as to the halls of power. She has covered more than two dozen hurricanes, the massive earthquake that struck Haiti, and the tsunami that hit Indonesia and Thailand.

Leinwand Leger is a past president of the National Press Club. She served as chairman of the NPC Board of Governors. She currently serves on the Board of Visitors for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Media and Journalism and is vice chair of the National Press Foundation in Washington, DC. She was a media leader at the World Economic Forum, Davos and at the Women Leaders Global Forum in Reykjavik in 2018 and 2019.

Donna Leinwandleger

Dushko Arsovski is a journalist and media expert with over 20 years of experience working with Macedonian and International media as a reporter, producer, editor and anchor. A researcher at the PDY State Department at the 2003-2004 academic year at NMSU, Las Cruces, he is a former editor of the BBC World Service Office in Skopje. Dushko was awarded with "Question of the Year" in 2005 and the "Special Achievements in Reporting on EU Affairs" in 2006 both awards from the EU Delegation to Macedonia. For two consecutive terms, he was a member of the “Mito Hadzivasilev Jasmin” Committee for State Journalism in 2013-2017.

He currently serves as the International News Editor for Macedonian National Television. Dushko is an NGO activist co-founder of Diversity Media, a Skopje-based organization for promoting professional standards in journalism and organizing training for journalists and civil society organizations.

Dushko Arsovski

Greg Toppo is a journalist with more than 25 years of experience, most of it covering education. He spent 15 years as the national education reporter for USA Today and was most recently a senior editor for Inside Higher Ed. He is the author of The Game Believes In You: How Digital Play Can Make Our Kids Smarter (St. Martin’s Press, 2015) and co-author, with educator James Tracy, of Running with Robots: The American High School’s Third Century, a forthcoming book on automation, AI and the future of high school (to be published in fall 2021 by MIT Press). In 2017, he became president of the Education Writers Association. From 2020 to 2021, Toppo taught journalism at Northwestern University in Qatar.

Greg Toppo

Harrison Hove is a Lecturer at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications. He teaches courses on television news reporting, investigative reporting, broadcast writing, and performance. Harrison also produces award winning, large scale projects with student journalists for WUFT-TV, a PBS affiliate. He has mentored four students who have earned spots at the Heart Journalism Awards National Championships, including the last two national champions in the television category.

Before arriving at the University of Florida in 2017, Hove spent more than a decade at local television news stations in Florida, Louisiana, and Ohio where he served in roles as news anchor, reporter, and meteorologist. He has traveled as far as Antarctica to cover a story. Hove has earned 7 regional Emmys and 21 nominations for his work.

Harrison Hove

James G. Wright is a senior editor at OCCRP. Prior to joining, he was investigations editor at the Courier Journal in Louisville, Kentucky. During the 2016-17 academic year he was a Knight Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, where he researched the influence of political mega-donors on American foreign policy. As deputy editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 2015, Wright lead an investigation that exposed casino magnate Sheldon Adelson’s secret purchase of the paper and covert efforts to undermine the Nevada judiciary. Previously, he was a reporter and editor specializing in investigative reporting and coverage of government and politics at metropolitan newspapers in Denver, San Diego, Seattle and Albany, New York; as well as a media management consultant in Algiers, Algeria.

In 1985, Wright’s effort to protect a confidential source led to the Idaho Supreme Court ruling in Schilling v. Wright that established limited newsman’s privilege in that state.

Among other awards, he has received the Northwestern University James Foley Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism; the national Society of Professional Journalists Ethics in Journalism Award; the John B. Oakes Award for environmental writing; the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Champion of Justice Award and a regional Emmy award.

James G. Wright

Katerina Sinadinovska obtained degree in journalism from the St.Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje in 2008. She is currently the assistant - editor in chief of Kapital, a weekly business and political magazine for which she has been working since 2010. She is also an author and editor of the TV project "Agenda 35" broadcasted on the national public television, an educational program about the reforms that will have to be adopted during the negotiation process with the EU.

Before joining Kapital, Katerina worked as a journalist for two TV stations in Skopje - "Kanal 5" and "Alfa TV". Earlier, from 2004 to 2006 she worked as a journalist in the newspaper Vecer.

In 2015, Katerina was one of the founders of the Council of Media Ethics of Macedonia and elected as a President of the Managing Board. In March 2018, Katerina was re-elected and given a new mandate to run the organization for the next four years.

Katerina Sinadinovska has contributed to professional trainings and conferences on media freedom, media ethics and literacy, and political and economic influence in the media sector, both in the country and abroad.

Katerina Sinadinovska

Melisa Skender supports development of digital projects in GONG focused on research and opening data. She has a degree in journalism from the Faculty of Political Science, the University of Zagreb. She worked as a professional journalist at various media outlets since 1996, her fields of interest were media policy, civil society as well as open and transparent government. 
She is the member of the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence Alumni Network from 2013 and prizewinner of the Croatian Journalists’ Association award for the best internet journalist in 2016.

Melisa Skender

Meri Jordanovska is a journalist currently working at the Makfax News Agency and the web portal A1on as an assistant editor-in-chief. Meri has been covering topics related to organized crime, corruption, human rights and the rule of law since 2004. She is one of the authors of the first databases in Macedonian journalism, uncovering the media ownership, foreign investments and the luxury Government project "Skopje 2014".

Jordanovska is a member of the Commission for complaints in the Council of media ethics and a member of the Suprvisory Board in the Association of Journalists of Macedonia. She has received numerous awards for investigative journalism.

Before joining the Makfax News Agency she has worked at BIRN Macedonia. Meri graduated with a degree in journalism from the Faculty of Law, Journalism Department, in Skopje.

Meri Jordanovska

Miranda Spivack has extensive experience in journalism with more than four decades as an investigative reporter and editor. A Fulbright Scholar in spring 2019 in North Macedonia, she is a former editor and reporter for The Washington Post. Miranda was awarded the Society of Professional Journalists' 2017 Sunshine Award for her “State Secrets” series for Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and has been honored with many other journalism awards.

She currently serves as a Journalism Fellow for the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida, is a Logan Non-fiction Fellow at the Carey Institute for Global Good in New York and previously was an Advising Editor for the Sarajevo-based Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Miranda is a lead trainer for the Young Journalists Network and led the selection committee for the trainers.

Miranda Spivack

Muna Shikaki is a skilled journalist, videographer and storyteller with over 16 years of experience as a Washington-based on-air correspondent for Al-Arabiya, one of the largest news networks in the Middle East. Shikaki translated complex trends and developments to an international audience of over 23 million. She covered four U.S. presidential administrations, Congressional hearings and legislation, national security, the trials of Guantanamo Bay detainees and Arab and Muslim American issues. Shikaki is a Fulbright fellow, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alum and a producer, videographer and reporter of several documentaries.

Muna Shikaki

Rosemary Armao has spent nearly 50 years as a newspaper reporter, editor, professor, and radio commentator in the US, Middle East, eastern Europe and Africa.

Currently, she works on public affairs programs for the National Public Radio station in her hometown of Albany, NY and teaches investigative reporting, writing and media ethics at the State University of New York at Albany.

She spent 2017-2019 as a consultant and editor at Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ ) in Amman Jordan. She also served as regional editor for the Middle East of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). Before that she worked extensively for OCCRP in eastern Europe and northern Africa, developing reporter skills and turning out investigative reports.

For nine years between 2008 and 2017, Armao’s job was an associate professor and director of the Journalism Program at UAlbany. She is a former president of the Journalism and Women’s Symposium and executive director of Investigative Reporters & Editors. She holds degrees from Syracuse and Ohio State universities.

Rosemary Armao

Sanja Vasik is an editor at TV Telma, has 24 years experience in journalism, working as an editor and reporter on TV, radio and newspaper, correspondent for foreign media, news anchor and host of TV debates. Her focus are International affairs and politics. She is a trainer and teacher for journalism students on topics Media concepts and Investigative journalism workshops.

Sanja Vasik

Saska Cvetkovska is an investigative reporter and media freedom activist. She is a co-founder of Investigative Reporting Lab – Macedonia, an OCCRP member center that fights disinformation with investigative reporting that uses interdisciplinary approaches, including technology and academic research.  She developed Mediapedia, a database of media ownership in Macedonia, and Getdata, an online tool that helps researchers and reporters find data online and offline in Macedonia and the region.   Saska has won more than ten domestic and international journalism awards. In 2018 she was elected by Macedonian journalists to represent them on the board of directors of the Association of Journalists of Macedonia, an organization that works to improve working conditions for reporters in the country.

Saska Cvetkovska

Viola Gienger lived and worked for seven years in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans, including four years in Bosnia, first managing training programs and consulting for independent media in transition, and then as a freelance journalist. She has reported from more than 30 countries, including in the Middle East and Asia, and has appeared as a guest commentator and moderator in television, radio, and podcasts.

Viola is Washington Editor for Just Security, an online forum on national and international security law and policy based at New York University Law School. She previously served as senior editor/writer at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, which focuses on preventing, managing and resolving violent conflict. Her work there included research and program strategy work on the Ukraine/Russia crisis. Prior to that, she was an editor and reporter at Bloomberg News for nine years, covering the State Department and the Pentagon for five years. She previously worked in newspapers and news agencies from Florida to the United Kingdom.

Her freelance work includes serving as guest national security editor at The Cipher Brief, and her writing has been published in Ozy, the Atlantic Council’s Ukraine Alert, the Chicago Tribune, Newhouse’s Religion News Service, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Transitions Online and Al-Monitor.

Viola Gienger

Vlado has been covering topics related to organised crime, corruption and human rights for the last five years and at the beginnings of his journalism career he was working as a reporter in the economic newsrooms in several media.

Before joining the BIRN Macedonia team, for five years he worked as a journalist for to the weekly Fokus magazine, where he was also a second editor in chief for the last 2014 year. He has worked for the news site NOVA TV, the daily newspaper Spic and for the weekly magazine Sega. In his career Vlado had collaborated with several magazines that cover music and arts. He has written music reviews for magazines and online music portals.

He has attended many training courses and workshops, including the BIRN Summer School for Investigative Journalism in 2013. He has received awards for his investigative stories from the Association of Journalists from Macedonia and the Macedonian media institute.

Vlado Apostolov

Xhelal Neziri is experienced investigative reporter and analyst. He holds a Master Degree in Communication Science on the thesis: The presence of investigative journalism in printed media in Macedonia: analysis of newspapers. Since 2018 Neziri is a PhD Candidate in Political Science in the Program: Democracy in era of globalization.

As journalist has started to work in 2000, in a daily newspaper while latter worked for several North Macedonian, regional and international media. In 2006 and 2007 has coordinated, edited and co-authored two cross-border investigative stories – Fake passports and Fake diplomas in the Balkan counties, with which has won prizes for best investigative stories. In 2016 Neziri has won another prize for investigative journalism about the story – In the toxic kingdom of Jugohrom, a story that also was a product of cross-border investigative journalism.

Since 2008 he has been representing Danish SCOOP project in Macedonia, coordinating national and trans-national investigative stories.

In 2011 Neziri was one of the co-founders of the first Center for Investigative Journalism in North Macedonia – SCOOP (scoop.mk) and the first president. In this position has served until May 2019. At the moment Neziri is Editor of SCOOP-Macedonia, Editor in chief of Inbox7.mk and columnist for kdpolitik.com.

In international level, he is a member of International Advisory Board at Journalismfund.eu based in Brussels and member of Global Initiative’s Civil Society Observatory to Counter Organized Crime in South Eastern Europe based in Vienna.

Young Journalists’ Network

About the project

About Democracy Lab

Meet our Participants

Our Trainers