5th round of grants are hard work

16 journalists applied, requesting €160.423, while we have €20.000 to distribute. 14 of them managed to fulfil the necessary technical criteria, which only a few of them fulfilled when they applied.

Still the jury decided not to grant any money yet. Instead the jury members decided to request more preparations from six of the applying teams and grant them more time to clarify the application or do some more preliminary research. 

“Great idea – but it seems they plan something like a feature.”

“Exiting story. But they say it has moved to country x and country y. They need journalists from those places in the group.”

The most common problems among the applications were letters of intent, a weight on reportage rather than on investigative journalism and the lack of team. Whereas the letters of intent are a technicality that several of the applicants managed to deal with, the character of the stories and the lack of teambuilding before the application appeared significant.

Journalismfund will follow up on the debate about teambuilding in cross-border reporting later this year. Also the distinction between reportage and investigative journalism was an issue, the jury had to consider in many of the applications and will be followed up on this website.

All applicants have now been informed.