Skopje, 16 December 2021 (MIA) - Due to the viewership and reactions provoked by the institutions, the journalistic content prepared by the Investigative Reporting Laboratory - IRL's investigative story about air pollution won first place, due to high viewership prompting the institutions to act, at Thursday's awards ceremony after vying at the competition titled "Tackling Air Pollution - Strengthening Public Awareness of Problems and Possible Solutions". The project aims to strengthen coordination between all responsible parties in order to overcome the problem of air pollution and pollution in general.

- We at IRL are focused on creating innovative media content, and although we have the utmost respect for the old school, we do think we need to be a little more open to new times, to new challenges, because our main focus on this work and this documentary was how to create impactful content. It is not enough for journalists to do only the best research, it is important how we will serve that data in order to have an impact, said the representative of the reporter's laboratory who received the award.

Second place went to Bojan Shasheski from MOF for research related to the abandoned mine in Lojane, which pollutes the surrounding environment although being defunct, while third place went to Hristina Gjorgjievska from "Vidi Vaka" for the series "Captured Lungs of the City" in which the emphasis is on concreting public greenery.

- Pollution in the country is in close correlation with corruption, in conjunction with the powerful, and we all suffer the consequences. If we journalists are the voice of the public, then I am sure that in the next period we will all have to deal much more with these topics so that, in a way, we’re able to say in the future that we really influence society and serve the citizens of the best possible way, said the president of the Association of Journalists of Macedonia (AJM), Mladen Cadikoski.

In addition to the representatives of AJM and the commission, the award ceremony was attended by the Ambassador of Sweden to North Macedonia, Christine Forsin Bainston, and UNDP Resident Representative, Armen Grigoryan.

Ambassador Bainston stressed that clean air is crucial and essential for humanity, emphasizing that air pollution is a problem that causes up to 400,000 premature deaths in Europe.

- A few years ago, Skopje, Tetovo and Bitola were ranked as the most polluted cities in the world, urgent action is needed and urgent priority for all factors and actors in society. Air pollution can be prevented and controlled and that is the most important strategy for the future. Sweden provides support and assistance to reduce air pollution both in the world and in Macedonia through the framework for development cooperation, said the Swedish ambassador.

The awards on behalf of the Commission for Selection of Journalistic Articles were awarded by seasoned journalist Goran Mihajloski, who stressed that the decision on the awards was unanimous. He also referred to the problems journalism faces in the country when it comes to the preparation of investigative texts.

- We are again in a situation where almost all the stories are made by independent journalism projects that are sponsored by foreign donors, which again indicates that the larger newsrooms do not pay attention to investigative journalism, and the smaller ones in the battle for staff and finance simply cannot commit so much, concluded Mihajloski.

Additionally, in addition to the three awards, Azren Celiku received an award for his creative series of videos, in which he approaches the problem of air pollution through children.

The competition on "Tackling air pollution, strengthening public awareness of problems and possible solutions on how to raise awareness of the existing problem and the best ways to solve it" was announced by AJM in cooperation with the UN Development Program. dk/ba/