Deadline: 28-Oct-22
The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) is inviting media outlets interested in connecting with their audiences and reporting on original stories that will make an impact to apply for Audience-Engaged Journalism Grants.
Individual grants will be awarded to selected media outlets that wish to cover national/regional/local topics on their own. Collaborative grants will be awarded to selected media outlets that want to investigate cross-border issues with a media partner.
What does the training cover?
Grantees selected by the international jury under the Audience-Engaged Journalism Collaboration scheme will undergo a four-day training programme that will be offered online. The training agenda will cover the following topics:
- Planning an engagement story
- How to select an engaging topic
- How to develop a callout
- What makes a project an engagement project?
- Local and global perspective in engagement journalism
- How to design a callout – technical perspective (intro to the BE tool)
- BE tool implementation
- Callout development based on local examples
- How to design a callout from an editorial perspective
- How to read the results; which topic could have success in your newsroom?
- What do people want to talk about?
Funding Information
Collaborative grants of €5,000 will be awarded to selected media outlets that want to investigate cross-border topics with a partner.
Activities and project support
- The selected grantees will undergo a four-day training programme that will be offered online and on-the-job mentoring by BIRN editors on how to use and implement innovative, effective audience-engagement tools for investigative community-based reporting.
- The participating media will receive training in the use of the B-Engaged tool, developed by BIRN, an online tool that enables direct engagement of many citizens interested in sharing information and evidence related to issues they are facing.
- Through training and mentoring, media outlets will also learn: how to select engaging topics; what is important to the audience; how to develop a callout; how to analyse crowdsourced data; how to incorporate data in the stories; and how to shape a story according to engagement journalism standards.
Eligibility Criteria
- Media outlets based in the following countries can apply for Audience-Engagement Journalism Grants: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Serbia and Slovakia.
- The call for applications is open to 10 participants in the first year and 10 participants in the second year (one media outlet per country per training cycle).
For more information, visit https://ipi.media/innovation/audience-engaged/