Nikola Krstikj
Nikola Krstikj
Macedonia | assistant editor and anchor for Alfa TV
Macedonian Fellow | Host: KCPT, Kansas City, MO
Krstikj, 34, is an assistant editor and anchor for Alfa TV, a private national broadcaster. Krstikj covers current affairs with an emphasis on economic and business news.
The breadth of his coverage ranges from simple reporting on foreign investments to investigating the government subsidies they get, and from straightforward writing about the national budget to analyzing its impact on the overall economy and on the individual citizen. Unlike other TV stations in Macedonia where the focus of the news is daily events, Alfa TV strives to provide stories with more time-consuming in-depth analysis, he said.
“I am always encouraging the younger journalists to seek the truth, to fight for what is right and to ask for more even in the most difficult situations,” Krstikj wrote in his application essay.
The media sector in Macedonia has had its ups and downs since independence, Krstikj wrote, but in the last five to six years the situation has gotten drastically worse. The only way to break the “spiral” of government influence and pressure on reporters and editors, he believes, is to arm the next generation of young journalists with ethical and professional training and “a safety net where they can express their concerns and where they can be protected from the influence of the centers of power.”
“I firmly believe that I can contribute to the advancement and democratization of the media sector in my country, to help the news outlets achieve the role they should really have – serving the public interest, not the political and business elites,” Krstikj wrote.
Kristikj will work at KCPT, a Public Broadcasting Station in Kansas City.
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