Jela de Franceschi

Jela de Franceschi’s television, radio, print and internet media experience spans more than 30 years. Her interviews with U.S. and international political figures and experts concentrate on military, political and economic developments in the Balkans and offer broad insights of dynamics and developments in the United States, Europe and NATO. Before joining VOA in 1998, she held top media posts in the former Yugoslavia and contributed expertise to Western media organizations, including CNN World Report, CBS Radio, BBC, Thames Television, HBO and Australian ABC TV. In 1991, the former U.S. Information Agency awarded de Franceschi a grant to produce two documentaries and a series of interviews with high-ranking U.S. officials broadcast on YUTEL, then the most viewed TV channel in the region. The two documentaries focused on U.S. policy toward war-torn Yugoslavia and on post-Soviet Russia. She also participated in international TV projects, including an HBO/Thames Television Emmy-nominated documentary about former UN General Secretary Kurt Waldheim’s career as an intelligence officer in World War II (1987) and the BBC’s documentary about Italian war crimes during the Second World War (1988), which received special citation at the International Venice Documentary Film Festival. De Franceschi attended the University of Belgrade School of Law in Yugoslavia.