Deadline: 7-Feb-21
Thomson Reuters Foundation has announced a five-day online Reporting on Human Trafficking workshop is a unique chance for journalists in India to gain practical skills and knowledge in a country that is home to some 14 million of the world’s modern-day trafficking.
A major focus will be on the ethics of reporting trafficking, from how to interact sensitively with traumatised survivors to getting past journalists’ own preconceived notions and stereotypes. They will cover safety issues, particularly when it comes to dealing with sources and reporting on organised crime.
With support from the FCDO, the workshop offers a combination of specialist expertise and mentoring, with an emphasis on producing high-impact stories for widespread dissemination. As well as coming away with a deep understanding of the scale, nature and causes of the problem, participants will learn about efforts to set global standards for combatting modern-day trafficking.
They will discuss the role of media in raising awareness, reducing vulnerability and holding to account governments, law enforcement and businesses. Participants will look at innovative approaches to fighting trafficking and scrutinise the quest for integrated policy responses across borders.
Each of the five day’s training will consist of three sessions:
- 09:00-10:30 – Online group session 1
- 10:30-11:30 – Offline study hour
- 11:30-13:00 – Online group session 2
This is an opportunity to pick the brains of reporters who have done extraordinary investigative work or ground-breaking reportage that has changed policy, provoked public outcry or brought traffickers to justice. Participants will also spend time with experts and those at the coal face of the anti-trafficking movement.
Eligibility Criteria
- Applicants must be full-time journalists or regular contributors to broadcast media organisations in India. Applicants must be able to demonstrate a commitment to a career in journalism in their country, must be a senior journalist with a minimum of three years’ professional experience and have a good level in spoken and written English.
- If you have been on a Thomson Reuters Foundation training programme within the last two years you will not be eligible to apply.
Submissions
When applying you will be asked to upload the following documents – please have these ready:
- 2 relevant work samples (maximum file size 5 MB) – in English if possible. For stories not in English, please include a 250-word English summary about the story.
- A letter from your editor consenting to your participation in the programme and committing to publish/broadcast resulting stories.
- Please note you will be asked to submit one or more story ideas within your application. The migration story has already been well covered so they will look for journalists with ideas that approach the issue from a new angle. They will not share your ideas with anyone.
Meet Your Trainers
- Kavita Chandran is a former financial journalist who has worked in newsrooms across the United States and Asia. She worked with Reuters News as a Training Editor in India and as FrontPage Editor with the Asia Top News team in Singapore. Prior to Reuters, Kavita was an editor at Bloomberg, New York. Today, she is based in Singapore and continues to write for various publications including CNBC Asia. She teaches journalism to undergraduate students at the Kaplan Institute, and Media Communications to MBA students at S.P. Jain Global School of Management.
- Monica Jha is an award-winning, independent journalist based in Bangalore, India. She writes on gender, development, and technology and specialises in longform multimedia stories. Her story on how technology is reshaping sex trafficking in rural Bengal won the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s Stop Slavery Media Award in 2020. She has been nominated (winner yet to be announced) for the True Story Award 2020/21 for a story on how Indian universities deny Dalits— considered lowest in the caste hierarchy— an equal education. She was also shortlisted for SOPA Awards 2020 for her story linking witch-hunting to the assertion of land rights by indigenous women.
For more information, visit https://tmsnrt.rs/2Yp8RzR