Deadline: 31-Oct-20
The Press Start is seeking applications for its “Enhancing Audience-Supported Collaborations for Empowered Media and Societies,” co-funded by the European Commission, that aims to support independent journalism by facilitating collaboration between journalists. They will be working together with Free Press Unlimited, Free Press for Eastern Europe (FPEE), and the Prague Media School.
Press Start will recruit journalists from Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia, Czechia, and Greece to pitch their collaborative, cross-border stories. Successful teams of journalists will have crowdfunding campaigns for their stories launched on the Press Start website. Matching funds will be available for each campaign to help journalists reach their goal. The stories will be published in an outlet or outlets of the journalists’ choosing.
What are they hoping to achieve?
- In EU countries where media freedom is being suppressed or threatened, independent journalists often struggle to find funding for important, impactful stories. The project aims to foster independent journalism by connecting journalists with donors interested in funding their stories and raising journalists’ profiles by promoting their crowdfunding campaigns.
- Supporting cross-border projects could pave the way for the future, a mutually beneficial collaboration between individual journalists and media outlets. Working collaboratively is also a great opportunity for journalists from different backgrounds to network, share experiences, and learn new skills from each other.
Media Freedom Conferences
- Participating journalists will also be invited to attend prestigious European media freedom and journalism conferences, such as the World Press Freedom Conference in The Hague, the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, and the Prague Media Point event.
- The conferences are an additional opportunity to network and learn new skills as well as share the benefits of collaborative journalism with the wider European media community. Due to COVID-19 many of these events are moving online.
Eligibility Criteria
- The applications from teams of journalists (teams of at least two journalists) from eight target countries, who will work together on a journalistic project of their choice. Teams whose proposals meet those criteria and successfully pass the screening process will have their campaigns launched on the Press Start crowdfunding platform. The successful applicants will create crowdfunding campaign material as well as assist in campaign promotion. Also provide matching funds, meaning for every Euro pledged, also contribute a Euro to the campaign, to give journalists’ campaigns the best chance of success.
- Only applicants from Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia, Czechia, and Greece are eligible to apply.
- The application should contain the following documents:
- Proposal (briefly introduce yourselves and the project);
- Pitch (max. 200 words);
- Journalists’ CVs;
- References (two letters of recommendation per journalist from people with whom applicants have worked);
- Budget in EUR (justify each item cost).
For more information, visit https://www.pressstart.org/ps-2020
