Deadline: 31-Mar-23
The Institute for War & Peace Reporting is inviting applications for the Small Grants for Investigative Reporting Projects to provide Ukraine journalists with the skills, knowledge and financial support to produce collaborative investigative reports that provide audiences and decision-makers with objective, credible information about the threats faced by media professionals in Ukraine.
The call is part of the project protecting the Frontline (PF), an IWPR initiative supported by UNESCO. PF builds on IWPR’s ongoing programming in Ukraine focused on strengthening the capacity of Ukrainian journalists to safely, effectively and professionally report from the frontlines to increase audience access to balanced, independent information.
The theme for the project is building resilience and enhancing media freedom to create a safer working environment for journalists, deter violence, and address impunity. Journalists reporting in Ukraine face a variety of threats. In addition to the danger of reporting from the frontline in Ukraine, journalists have also been kidnapped, illegally detained, and cyberstalked, harassed and threatened simply for doing their job.
The project will provide training and mentoring plus financial and editorial support for 14 Ukrainian journalists to conduct investigative reporting that documents violations of journalists’ rights in Ukraine. The 14 journalists will team up (typically two journalists per report) to complete up to 7 collaborative investigative reports; they will accept investigative reporting proposals related to harassment, threats and attacks on the media working in Ukraine.
Publications and events will target the general public, the wider media community, and international stakeholders to raise awareness and support for greater protections for journalists, and ultimately contribute to improvements in the enabling environment within which journalists can exercise their professions.
IWPR will provide in-person training sessions April (subject to security conditions) on related subjects, including safety and security in high-risk areas, trauma-informed reporting, covering the courts, and legal rights and protections for journalists under Ukrainian and international law. Online trainings include gender sensitive reporting. Journalists must attend the trainings to be eligible for funding for the investigative reports. Journalists will also receive one-on-one mentoring from an experienced editor and a journalism legal rights expert.
IWPR also will host events where journalists will present their investigative findings and share their experiences with local and international stakeholders.
Funding Information
- Up to USD $1,000 per 2-person team for desk review/OSINT investigative reporting; up to USD $2,000 for investigative reporting involving field work (e.g., travel to regions to interview sources, site visits, court coverage, document access, etc.)
- Journalists must complete the offered trainings, including the in-person training planned for April 2023, to be eligible for funding.
- The project duration is three months (to June 15, 2023). IWPR expects to fund 7 collaborative reports. Grants are intended to cover the fees for journalists and expenses such as travel, and other costs directly related to the delivery of the investigative project output. The grant does not cover costs for the purchase of equipment and overhead.
Deliverables
- The applicant will deliver one investigative report in print or multimedia format. The applicants will investigate violations of the rights of journalists in Ukraine. Examples of story topics include journalists who have been targeted for doing the job, including being killed, tortured, kidnaped, illegally detained, physically attacked, threatened with violence, cyberstalking and harassment, and doxing. The investigative piece can be based on desk research/open-source intelligence techniques (OSINT) and/or field research, including travel to areas to interview sources, access documents, etc.
- Select journalists also will be invited to participate on panel discussions about their projects with other journalists and international stakeholders.
Eligibility Criteria
- Applications are open to experienced Ukrainian professional journalists.
- The interested applicants should take note of the following minimum requirements:
- Journalists should have experience in writing investigative articles;
- Journalists should be committed to the best practices of international journalism standards and the principles of ethical journalism;
For more information, visit Small Grants for Investigative Reporting Projects.