Jeta Xharra

Jeta Xharra is Director of Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Kosovo, as well as a leading anchor and editor of “Life in Kosovo”, broadcasted in prime-time in Kosovar public TV, the only Kosovo program profiled in New York Times ****

The program has pushed the boundaries of debate, opening taboo subjects that Kosovars have never before discussed and has gone to being from the most criticised to the most watched current affairs program in Kosovo.

She got into journalism working as a fixer/local producer for BBC News and Channel 4 in 1998 and later became the manager of the BBC Kosovo Bureau. In 1999, she worked for BBC News in Albania and Macedonia and in 2003 she opened the office for Institute for War and Peace Reporting in Kosovo. 

She completed an MA in War Studies at King's College London (2000), and gained a distinction for an MA in Screenwriting from the London College of Printing (2002). She wrote a play "Warless" which was presented as a reading in London's Royal Court theatre during the Young Writer's Festival in 2004.

Xharra has published a front-page article in the Independent and written for the Economist, Sunday Telegraph and Jane's Intelligence Review. While in the UK, Xharra worked for the Foreign News Planning Desk at the BBC World Service, Institute for War and Peace Reporting and in 2005 she became one of the founders of Balkan Investigative Reporting Network. 

BIRN Kosovo has about 70 staff all over Kosovo that are responsible for producing English publications such as Balkan Insight and Prishtina Insight, as well as products in local languages such as "Justice in Kosovo", "Life in Kosovo newspaper" and Court Monitoring Project. In 2012 the South East Europe Media Organisation, SEEMO, named Jeta Xharra as winner of the 2012 Dr Erhard Busek - SEEMO Award for Better Understanding in South East Europe.