Deadline: 11-Oct-20
SEI Asia has announced a Call for Environmental reporting grants for local and regional journalists with six grants to selected local and regional journalists in Asia to showcase impactful stories that highlight critical environmental sustainability issues in the region.
As part of SEI Asia’s media engagement and capacity building efforts, six grants will be provided to local and regional journalists for the production of in-depth reports on critical environmental topics in Asia.
The grant aims to help build media capacity on contextual science reporting on environmental topics. It also hopes to strengthen partnerships to support knowledge and evidence sharing on critical sustainability issues for policy and decision makers.
Objectives
The grants aim to:
- Build media capacity on contextual and in-depth reporting of environmental topics;
- Strengthen media partnership to aid in knowledge and evidence sharing on critical sustainability issues to policy makers.
Focus Areas
SEI will provide mentorship and related scientific research to support the production of the stories. The proposed stories must revolve around the following areas of SEI’s work:
- Air quality (pollution, health, vulnerable communities)
- Climate Change and disaster risk reduction
- Mekong region water insecurity
- Bio economy
- Urban governance (green spaces, city health)
Funding Information
- Each grantee will receive USD$ 2000 to produce and publish their proposed story. The outputs can be in the form of text-based articles, short films or video interviews or audio podcasts.
Required outputs
Grantees need to submit at least one of the following:
- Text-based stories with accompanying images: 1,000-3,000 words + 2-3 images;
- Short films or video interviews (6-10 minutes) with 200-word written summary;
- Audio podcast: Not longer than 20 minutes with a 200-word written summary.
Who can apply?
- Eligible applicants are young, early-career journalists living in Asia, and can be beginner, mid-career, or freelance. Groups of journalists who wish to collaborate can also apply. Multimedia producers that work with photography, audio, video, and/or animation are also welcome to apply.
- Six grants worth US$2,000 each will be awarded to selected applicants.
- Individual or a group of journalists working in print, digital, radio and television in Asia. Both freelance and staff journalists can apply.
- Multimedia producers that work with photography, audio, video, and/or animation
- Freelance journalists are encouraged to provide a supporting letter of intent from an outlet or organization that will disseminate their work.
- The outputs can be in English and/or a local language publication (but English translations to be provided by the journalist to SEI Asia).
- Preference is given to early-career, female journalists living in the Mekong Region.
Selection Criteria
- Relevance: The story proposal must be relevant to the SEI topics mentioned above. It must explain why the chosen topic is relevant to the current environmental scenario in the grantee’s country or in the region of Asia as a whole.
- Angle: if the central topic has already been addressed, then the story should highlight how it is different and focuses on a new worthwhile aspect of the environmental issues. Journalists are encouraged to report on these environmental issues with a policy lens.
- Impact: The story must inform, encourage discourse and urge policy action.
- Feasibility: all facets of the project must be realistic and achievable within the given timeline.
- Diversity: the project should include as much gender, ethnic, linguistic, geographic, and cultural diversity as possible
- Publishing: The applicants will need to propose where their stories (or multimedia) will be published indicating the names of the respective website or news outlet.
For more information, visit https://www.sei.org/featured/sei-asia-media-grant/