Virus pandemic leaves Kosovo without print media

STORY: Kosovo Virus Newspapers - Virus pandemic leaves Kosovo without print media

LENGTH: 04:51

FIRST RUN: 0300

RESTRICTIONS:

TYPE: English/Albanian/Natsound

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS

STORY NUMBER: 4323860

DATELINE: 28/30 April 2021 - Gracanica/Ferizaj/Pristina

SHOTLIST:

RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Gračanica - 28 April 2021

1. Wide exterior of KOHA printing house

2. Various of 'Koha Ditore' newspaper editor, Agron Bajrami, inside the printing house

3. Various of Bajrami newspaper edition left in printing machine

4. SOUNDBITE (English) Agron Bajrami, editor of 'Koha Ditore' newspaper:

"Before the pandemic the readership of the printed newspapers in general was dropping and economically it was not viable to continue printing, and we oriented ourselves into taking all our readers from the printing (printed) version to our electronically published version."

5. Idle newspaper printing machine

6. SOUNDBITE (English) Agron Bajrami, editor of 'Koha Ditore' newspaper:

"The pandemic has made things happen faster. What probably would have happened within five years they made it happen within five months. The pandemic, the virus, made us all do something much quicker than we normally would have done it, because the pressure became bigger immediately. But I think we were all aware this is the road we need to take even before the virus came in."

7. Spider web in printing machine with Bajrami in the background

8. Various of Bajrami inside printing house, sign on door

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Pristina - 28 April 2021

9. Newspaper kiosk in downtown Pristina

10. Customer buying item at kiosk

11. SOUNDBITE (Albanian) Ibrahim Gashi, newspaper salesman:

"The ones who have read the newspaper regularly have understood that there are no more newspapers on a daily basis because it is not being printed. Nevertheless at least once a week they come and ask if by any chance a newspaper is out, or when will it be."

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Ferizaj - 30 April 2021

12. Close up of stack of newspapers

13. Newspaper collector Azem Qerkini entering his working room

14. Various of Qerkini looking through old newspapers archived on shelves

15. Close up of newspaper date reading 1991

16. Qerkini reading newspaper

17. SOUNDBITE (Albanian) Azem Qerkini, newspaper collector:

"I have here various newspapers from the year 1990-91, the total number that I collected is around 30,000. Here behind me I have archived only 20,000 of them because around a third were damaged during the war (Kosovo 1998-1999 War)."

18. Qerkini looking at his collection

19. Tilt down of old newspapers

20. SOUNDBITE (Albanian) Azem Qerkini, newspaper collector:

"There were cases when a newspaper number was missing and I went in Skopje (North Macedonia) to find it since I couldn't find it here."

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Pristina - 30 April 2021

21. Various of Imer Mushkolaj reading news on his mobile

22. SOUNDBITE (Albanian) Imer Mushkolaj, Chairman of the Press Council of Kosovo:

"Unfortunately today Kosovo is the only place in Europe - and maybe a wider area - that has no (printed) daily newspaper. The focus is online, but the older generations are deprived of their primary source of information, in this case from the printed newspaper."

23. Mushkolaj scrolling through news site on his mobile

24. SOUNDBITE (Albanian) Imer Mushkolaj, Chairman of the Press Council of Kosovo:

"Kosovo has brought to an end an old tradition and unfortunately now there does not exist a written history as it exists in the wider region and other places."

25. Various of Koha newsroom, journalists at work on computers, display cabinet with old cameras and newspaper editions

STORYLINE:

Kosovo is the first place in Europe to be left without print media, with newspapers no longer in print as news media shift online in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Up until March last year (2020) Kosovo had five daily newspapers, all with small circulations.

The leading daily, 'Koha Ditore', sold about 10,000 copies a day at its peak.

Now its printing presses lie idle.

The paper's editor Agron Bajrami said the pandemic accelerated the inevitable step of switching online, with print media no longer financially viable.

Coronavirus lockdowns reduced newspaper sales and ad revenue with many turning to smartphones and TV sets for their news consumption.

Ibrahim Gashi has been selling newspapers in the centre of capital Pristina for almost 35 years.

He said he gets asked at least once a week if he has newspapers for sale.

Azem Qerkini, an accountant and newspaper collector, has an archive of around 20,000 newspapers.

Having originally collected 30,000, a third of his collection was damaged in the 1998-1999 Kosovo war.

His archive, painstakingly collected over decades, can now be considered an important part of Kosovo's cultural heritage.

The demise of the print media will hit older generations harder, according to Imer Mishkolaj who heads the Print Media Council association.

He also believes the closure of newspapers will lead to a lack of written history.

Following a surge in coronavirus cases last month, Kosovo is working on vaccinating its population as fast as it can.

Kosovo, which unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February 2008, is the last country in Europe to start inoculating its citizens.

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