Jorgen Samso

Journalist - Correspondent - Producer - Videojournalist - Media Consultant

Based in Copenhagen (with a second home in Belgrade)

Specialized in the Western Balkans region. News, feature and documentary.

Jorgen Samso

Journalist - Correspondent - Producer - Videojournalist - Media Consultant

Based in Copenhagen (with a second home in Belgrade)

Specialized in the Western Balkans region. News, feature and documentary.

Albin Tahiri: I feel less nervous being the first one than being the only one
[Feature story and video] Kosovo’s first Winter Olympian talks about the weight of expectations, a solo struggle to qualify and the role of sport in Kosovo’s fight for recognition. The first thing you notice about 28-year-old Albin Tahiri is his appearance as an athlete, a guy who works out more than just on a regular basis. Article also available in Albanian http://kosovotwopointzero.com/albin-tahiri-feel-less-nervous-first-one-one/
Kosovo 2.0
VIDEO: Serbian Anti-Government Protests Set to Continue
After a break over the Easter holidays that saw far fewer crowds on the streets, rallies across the country are expected to resume in full force tonight.
Balkan Insight, Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN)
Left Out in the Cold
[Contributed reporting and video] As temperatures approach freezing and migrants continue to cross into Europe in record numbers, many are getting sick. Some European governments are not doing enough. Author: Leila Molana-Allen Video Journalist, The Economist Also here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaA58ukH5Ko
The Economist
Featured
Washington’s Balkan power play
NATO’s invitation to Montenegro this week to join the military alliance was more than a kindness to a small ex-Yugoslav republic. It was another sign of a battle for influence in the Balkans between Russia and the U.S. In recent weeks high-level U.S. and NATO officials have visited the Croatian, Serb and Montenegrin capitals, seeking to revive stalled efforts to bring the region closer to the West.
POLITICO Europe
Denmark Tires of its Croatian ‘Gypsy Boss’
The life and escapades of Gimi Levakovic, patriarch of Denmark’s ‘most criminal family’, have united a nation in outrage. When Gimi Levakovic sped up his car on a street in central Copenhagen and mowed down his pregnant ex-girlfriend in April 2011, it sparked attention in the tabloid media. But it was not until four years later that the Croatian national, nicknamed “The Gypsy Boss” (“Sigøjnerbossen”) by the Danish media – and the criminal enterprises of his Roma family, gripped a whole nation.
Balkan Insight, Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN)
Serbia feels “under attack” after Croatia shuts border
Serbia’s foreign minister said his country “is now under attack” after Croatia shut its border to stop thousands of asylum seekers crossing through on their way to the EU — the chilliest relations between the two Balkan countries have been since they fought a bloody war in the 1990s. Croatia has closed all eight of its border crossings with Serbia in an attempt to stem the flow.
POLITICO Europe
Migrants forced to do the Balkan border shuffle
Thousands of migrants were being shunted around the Balkans as Croatia and Hungary engaged in competitive border closings designed to shift the unwanted flood of asylum seekers coming north from Serbia. Over the past week new routes to northern Europe have appeared and just as quickly disappeared as local countries and the broader EU try to come up with a common solution for Europe’s largest human migration since the end of World War Two.
POLITICO Europe
Blocked from Hungary, migrants knock on Croatia’s door
Serbia’s border with Hungary has turned into a fenced barrier guarded by police and troops, so migrants seeking to get into the EU have shifted destination and are now trying to make it past the frontier with Croatia. Groups of five came by taxi and busloads of around 50 people were dropped off near the sleepy town of Šid on the western Serbian-Croatian border.
POLITICO Europe
Desperate for ‘Madame Merkel’
Hungary slammed shut its frontier with Serbia on Tuesday, leaving thousands of angry migrants trapped on the wrong side of a new border fence as Budapest closed a route that has seen more than 200,000 people pass through in their hunt for a better and safer life in the EU. The chaotic scene brought the latest haunting image of the EU’s migration crisis: Hundreds of refugees in front of the border crossing on the main highway, whistling and slamming together empty water bottles while chanting: “No food, no water.
POLITICO Europe
Featured
Fences and Tear Gas at Europe’s Gates
In the early hours of Friday, Sept. 4, in the heavily guarded registration camp in the Hungarian border town of Roszke, a desperate Syrian man from Damascus shouted through two layers of fencing. “Very bad here! Very bad, very bad!”. Dressed in beige shorts, sandals, and a sun-faded red polo shirt, he stood by the inner layer of fencing, about 40 feet away from journalists, who aren’t allowed inside the camp, in front of the entrance to one of the camp’s 30 to 40 large green military tents.
Foreign Policy
Refugees Break Out of Camp in Hungary
Reporting from Röszke, Hungary, from border crossing and break out from refugee camp. [Radio, in Danish]
DR - National Danish Public Broadcaster
Featured
„Klik kriterij“ ne bi trebao postati mjerilo novinarskog rada
Jørgen Samsø Nielsen je novinar iz Danske koji je pola godine radio kao tv reporter za kanadski CBC, dok je na Balkanu sarađivao sa BIRN-om. Šest godina je bio multimedijalni dopisnik danske nacionalne novinske agencije Ritzaus, za koju je izvještavao iz Nepala, SAD-a, Bolivije, Haitija itd. Od 2001. godine posjećuje balkanske države, da bi se u konačnici preselio u Beograd gdje kao freelancer piše za različite skandinavske publikacije.
Mediacentar Sarajevo, article by Dino Jahic
‘If Sabac Goes Down, We All Go Down’
Villagers in the disaster-stricken area of Sabac and Obrenovac have returned to ruined homes, amidst fears that more floods could be on the way. “The bridge is not safe. So if you decide to drive across, keep left. The right side is porous as hell,” says the policeman. It’s Monday morning, May 19, three days after the worst flooding in more than a century, has hit Serbia.
Balkan Insight (BIRN)
Obrenovac Flood Survivors ‘Watched Neighbours Drown’
Family from Obrenovac recall day of terror in which they fled for their lives and saw neighbours perish in front of their eyes. Hundreds of evacuees have found temporary shelter in the Pionirski Grad sports complex in Belgrade after the worst natural disaster in Serbian history. Almost all are from Obrenovac, the worst hit area in the disaster so far.
Balkan Insight (BIRN)
Oversvømmelser fører til solidaritet på Balkan
Midt i katastrofen ser Serbiens og Bosniens nabolande stort på fortidens fjendskaber forud for en enorm genopbygningsopgave. ”Det er på egen risiko,” siger en politimand, der står lænet op ad døren på sin bil. Broen over floden Drenova, en gren af den store Sava-flod, er lukket i den ene vejbane med et rødt og hvidt stykke advarselstape...
Kristeligt Dagblad
LIVE Hit on DR2 TV about Floodings in Serbia
[Language in clip: Danish] Live hit on Danish National Televison, The News Hour with me about the floodings in Serbia, May 2014 [in Danish], Sunday 18th of May 2014. The disaster hit Serbia in the early morning hours of Friday, May 16th.
Nyhedstimen/The News Hour, DR2 - Danish National Broadcaster (DR)

About

Jorgen Samso

Journalism

Editing

Video

Producing

Storytelling

Online

Writing

Videojournalist

Multimedia

One-man-band-VJ

Documentary

Award-winning international journalist/correspondent and producer with a focus on the Balkans and Africa but with assignments across the globe. Main client: PBS NewsHour.

Online, print and photography bylines at The Lancet and National Geographic, Politico Europe and Foreign Policy Magazine, Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), and a range of national Danish media outlets, including radio.

Media consultant, selection committee member 2024-2026, EU-funded program IMM, support to Public Service Media in the Western Balkans.

HEAT/HEFAT in 2018 and 2022.

• 2025 Emmy Award nomination in Long Form category for "Sudan's Civil War" (PBS NewsHour).

• 2024 Emmy nomination - part of PBS NewsHour team - for Israel/Hamas war coverage.

• 2024 Peabody Award Winner - part of PBS NewsHour team - for Israel/Hamas war coverage.

• 2024 OPC Awards Citation Winner, Overseas Press Club of America, for coverage of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria for PBS NewsHour

• 2019 Award winner, The Ricardo Ortega Memorial Prize, United Nations Correspondent's Association (UNCA) for coverage of civil war amidst an Ebola outbreak in DR Congo.

Fellowships:
2024 Journalist-in-Residence, Goethe Institute, Prague
2020 & 2022 UN Foundation
2018 European Journalism Center (EJC)
2015-2016 The Brown Institute for Media Innovation, Columbia & Stanford Universities (Magic Grant)

2015 M.A. in Journalism, Politics & International Affairs, Columbia University, New York.

Contact: jorgensamso@gmail.com