Archive for the ‘Investigative journalism’ Category
Truly European journalism
Posted by: Brigitte Alfter in EU, Investigative journalism, Threats against journalists, alternative funding of journalism, cross-border research on January 24th, 2010
Slave workers in Europe. Personal tragedies, evil masterminds, fear, violence and threats to journalists. And European questions. All elements for a good story are there. Yet it took Adrian Mogos from Romania two years before he had finally published the story, he already had heard rumours about so long ago. The reason: There was no money for travelling, communication and the extra time that is necessary to do cross-border research.
Now at last the story is documented: Workers from Moldova are trafficked to the Czech Republic, where they work under slave like conditions, in this case picking asparagus. The organised crime structures behind appear to have caused a trail of fear, which was what the team of journalists found whereever they looked.
Adrian Mogos decided to follow the story – across borders and against all obstacles – including the economic ones. The research could finally be done in the course of 2009, because Mogos and his team got a research grant from the newly founded Journalismfund.eu, which aims at supporting exactly this type of cross-border research.
Mogos and his team are not the only journalists, who face such problems. Even editors who support investigative and research intensive stories are often not willing (or do not have the budget) to pay for trips abroad, translations, long-distance calls and so on. While European integration has been evolving over the past decades, media still very much stick to their national focus.
Focusing on a national target group is crucial because of our different media traditions. Our readers simply are used to have their stories presented in one way, that’s what they like. So that’s what they should get.
Yet the research should not be limited to stay within the national frontiers. When stories cross borders – like traffickers and their victims do, and like the vegetables do, that have been picked by the slave workers – then journalists must cooperate with colleagues across borders or travel themselves. Oftentimes networking is necessary because of the knowledge of each national situation. But networking ultimately also gives added value to the editors and publishers. If a team of reporters gathers good evidence each in the field or country, they know best, each of the editors will get more information through the added research to present to the readers. If the story then is published in several countries around the same time, we are heading towards truly European journalism.
Time to get inspired to develop it further! Journalismfund.eu tries to do that by making possible stories like the one about labour trafficking through research grants. The grants are distributed according to a set of criteria by an anonymous jury – in order to maintain full journalistic indepence, avoid interference and heighten credibility. The jury consists of highly estimated colleagues, whose identity will be disclosed after their term is over – and when there will be no more interest in trying to influence them one way or the other.
The funding so far has been granted by the freedom of speach foundation Fritt Ord in Norway and by the Media Programme of the Open Society Institute. The Network of European Foundations has kindly supported the idea. Journalismfund.eu is a project by the Belgian Pascal
Decroos Fond.
Read more about the slave workers as well as the journalists’ report on how it was done.
No more excuses
Posted by: Brigitte Alfter in EU, Investigative journalism, alternative funding of journalism, cross-border research on October 8th, 2009
Journalists sometimes say, that oh yes, it would be no problem to do this fantastic story if just…. they had a bit of extra time for the research or if just…. they had a bit of extra money to meet with another colleague to cooperate on the research or if just….
For those journalists, who have a good story with relevance in Europe or in several European countries there is now a bit of help!
Journalismfund.eu supports cross-border research carried out by journalists from several European countries. Jouranlismfund.eu gives individual research grants to small teams of journalists, who have a good story. A new call for applications is out today. This round € 20.000 are to be distributed.
Of course there are always two main questions: Where does the money come from, and what about editorial independence?
Well!
Journalismfund.eu is a project of the Belgian Pascal Decroos Fund, the FPD, which for ten years has given this type of research grants to journalists working on a story with relevance in Flanders. The FPD provides offices and other facilities.
The initial seed funding comes from the Norwegian freedom of speech foundation Fritt Ord
The current second level seed funding now comes from the Open Society Institute’s Media Program. Read about the funding for the research grants.
And the editorial independence?
Every time, money is granted to journalism, there must be a buffer to guarantee editorial independence. In this case we have chosen a combination of two elements. Journalists and investigative journalist organizations give their good reputation to Journalismfund.eu by joining the advisory board. In addition we have a model with an anonymous jury.
The jury consists of four persons. They were selected in the spring of 2009 among a long-list of highly respected media persons gathered by the advisory board. In the spring of 2011 the first two members will leave the board and their names will be published then.
Are there any criteria and rules? Yes, there are. Journalismfund.eu aims to fulfill the niche of covering stories that go across borders or have relevance in several European countries, se the rules for application and the assessment criteria, which the jury applies.
For other types of support for example on national level or outside the European Union and the European Economic Area have a look at our list of other journalism grants.
So now – no more excuses!
Get inspiration from our list of cross-border reporting projects and read more about alternative funding for journalism in our news section and in the archive.
