Jeta Xharra is the founder and director of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) in Kosovo, as well as anchor and editor of current affairs programs in Kosovo since 2005. She established the “Life in Kosovo (Jeta ne Kosove)” TV programme that dealt with current affairs, taboo topics and investigative reporting and was broadcast on RTK for over 15 years. She is now anchor of “Kallxo Pernime that airs 3 times a week in TV Dukagjini.
Xharra established a new format of watchdog journalism that aimed to go beyond simply reporting by also fighting for a better future.
This watchdog and fact-checking format was also exported to neighbouring countries, and Xharra recently broadcast the programme “Life in Macedonia” on public television in North Macedonia. Xharra also founded the magazine Prishtina Insight, which offers news and in-depth analysis from Kosovo in English for foreign audiences.
As a well-known trainer in investigative journalism, Xharra has also trained journalists and civil society activists in Lebanon, Pakistan and Ukraine.
She started out in journalism in March 1998 as part of the BBC crew that managed to take the only existing footage of the attack on the Jashari family in Prekaz. She worked throughout the war as a local producer for the BBC in Kosovo, North Macedonia and Albania.
Following the war, Xharra completed a master’s degree in War Studies at King’s College London in the UK and a further master’s degree in Screenwriting from the London College of Printing. She returned to Kosovo in 2003 and opened the Kosovo office for the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR). Within the region, this Institute then became BIRN, which Xharra established together with five regional colleagues.
In 2012, the South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) presented Xharra with the “Dr Erhard Busek Award for Better Understanding in South East Europe”, and in 2021 she earned first place in investigative journalism from the European Commission. She has also been named as a source of reporting corruption by US State Department in 2020 and 2021.
@JetaXharra
