N1's Minela Jasar-Opardija won one of Bosnia's most prestigious awards 'Srdjan Aleksic' for professional reporting in 2020 by a unanimous decision of the four-membered jury, Citizens' Helsinki Parliament announced Wednesday, adding that Emina Dizdarevic from the Balkan Research Network – BIRN also won the first prize in the second category 2.

In addition to Jasar-Opardija, the second prize in Category 1, in which civil society organizations nominate journalists whose reporting they consider socially responsible and professional, went to Kristina Ljevak, a freelance journalist, and the Special Plaque was given to Lidija Pisker from the media.ba portal.

In Category 2, where journalists had the opportunity to nominate their works, the second prize was won by the duo Hilma Unkic and Ajdin Kamber, from the portal discriminacija.ba, and the third prize by Alema Kazazic from Federal TV (FTV).

This year's competition for the “Srdjan Aleksic” Journalist Award received a total of 18 applications from journalists and 8 proposals from non-governmental organizations.

According to the jury opinion, the winner Minela Jasar-Opardija's approach to the topic was “excellent, she listened to several interlocutors and told their stories in a very professional manner and in a way that they are not just one of a series of stories that have to fill a page, serve as a click-bait and spend a few of readers’ minutes glued to the screen, but they made one think about problems that we may not even be aware of.”

This was the 10th jubilee award ceremony of the “Srdjan Aleksic” Journalist Award, which was established in 2010 at the initiative of the Helsinki Parliament of the Citizens of Banja Luka, the Cure Foundation as well as the Association of Young Journalists of Bosnia's Republika Srpska entity. So far, a total of 43 journalists from Bosnia and Herzegovina have received this award.

The Journalist Award is given for professional and continuous reporting on marginalized and vulnerable groups in the Bosnian society and for the development of socially responsible journalism. This year's awards ceremony was organized by the Citizens’ Helsinki Parliament of Banja Luka and the Network for Building Peace with the support of Civil Right Defenders.