Deadline: 24 May 2020
Thomson Reuters Foundation’s COVID-19 Crisis Reporting EAP Hub creates a space for journalists across several countries in Eastern Europe to gather virtually for training, knowledge sharing, expert sessions and network building, ensuring that they and their newsrooms remain on top of the story of the year.
The main goal of the project is to help the participants improve their ability to cover the COVID-19 pandemic and its ongoing impact on Azerbaijan, Armenia,Belarus,Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine such as economic, political, social, financial, societal and personal fallouts from the pandemics.
The outbreak of the novel Coronavirus sweeping the globe is threatening millions of lives, pressuring health care systems and disrupting economies. Equally relentless is the proliferation of misinformation and a lack of understanding about the potential consequences and impacts of COVID-19, leading to widespread confusion, fear and complicating efforts by governments and organisations to find solutions to the crisis.
Participants will be encouraged to create real life stories for their media and also to work with colleagues from other countries in order to produce cross border stories. Some mentoring in this area will be offered.
Program dates are 3rd June – 26th August 2020. Conducted remotely over these 12 weeks for journalists from Azerbaijan, Armenia,Belarus,Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine the hub will feature the latest platforms and interactive online tools to connect participants in engaging real-time video seminars with world-class trainers and experts. Journalists will acquire relevant knowledge, trade tips and insights about their different contexts, master new digital skills, and access influential policymakers and officials for exclusive information and story ideas to help them cover the impact of Covid-19 in their respective countries at a deeper, better-informed level.
The cohort will meet twice a week for a live 90-minute virtual session with trainers and/or expert speakers to ask questions, share ideas, learn new skills and practice them. All live sessions will be supplemented with extra material.
During live sessions, only the presentations by the trainers as well as the guest speakers’ lectures will be recorded, whereas the group’s interactions, discussions and mentoring will not be recorded. Post-session discussions and feedback on an exclusive hub forum will extend the learning process.
In addition to the two 90-minute weekly live sessions, participants should allow for a further 2-3 hours per week of independent research, activities and group interaction on the forum.
The programme of the project will cover:
- overall knowledge and understanding of coronavirus
- medical, economic, financial and business angles
- new online instruments and platforms
- how to search for trusted information and identify fake news
- how individual medias in the region create new products, how they promote and monetise them
- working with big data
- best and worst practices of visualising stories on the pandemics and its fallout
- ethical reporting and standards
Funding Information
Participants are expected to cover their own Internet/data costs, but small grants are available to support content production.
Eligibility Criteria
Applicants must be:
- Nationals based in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine
- Working as full-time journalists or regular contributors for local language and Russian-language media organisations in the respective countries;
- They must have a minimum of three years professional experience and have a good level of spoken and written Russian. The main working language is Russian though mentoring and coordinating assistance would be available in English.
- Able to commit to the full length of the 12 week training programming
- Ability to produce up to 3 pieces of content during the 12 week programme
- Demonstrable commitment to impartial, accurate and independent journalism
Applicants must have access to a minimum internet speed of 1 MB/second.
For more information, visit https://tmsnrt.rs/3buPjhJ