News Noses

The Flemish Journalism Fund (FJF) was the innovation incubator of Journalismfund.eu, supported by the government of Flanders (the northern, Dutch speaking part of Belgium). Throughout 2019 and 2020 the FJF supported 11 projects that innovated and diversified journalism in Flanders. This is one of them.

The project in a nutshell

• In the run-up to the elections on 26 May 2019, seven politicians—each from a different party—were profiled by seven secondary school classes from the RINGtv broadcasting area.
• Each class was assigned one politician, and there could only be one class per school.
• Each class was given an information session about the political landscape by RINGtv and learned techniques for conducting a good political interview. The pupils then determined the central themes themselves and prepared the interview in the classroom.
• A five-minute montage of the interviews was produced and shared by RINGtv on television, their website and social media.
• The seven interviews were presented to a jury of political journalists and professors who awarded the best interview with the jury’s prize. There was also an audience prize, which was awarded based on the number of votes on social media. 

RINGtv's goals for the project

• Getting young people more involved in politics and vice versa. 
• Keeping in touch with the world of young people.
• Introducing young people to journalism and RINGtv. 
• Creating space for reports that appeal to young people in the run-up to the elections
• Raising the visibility of RINGtv’s social media among a young audience

Diverse youth outreach

RINGtv is the regional television broadcaster for the Halle-Vilvoorde region. From the 40 secondary schools in the broadcasting region, it selected seven classes to participate in the News Noses project.

With this project, RINGtv wanted to get young people more involved in politics. After all, these teenagers in their fifth and sixth year of secondary education will soon also be able to vote. What’s more, the project aimed to introduce them to the world of journalism.

More than 150 students from various disciplines (ASO, TSO and BSO) participated in the News Noses competition.

New project: Experiment Correspondent

After the 2019 edition, which was supported by the FJF, RINGtv decided to develop a new edition of News Noses in 2020. Again, with young people and journalism as its primary focus.

Seven young people from the RINGtv region who were studying or doing an internship abroad became “foreign correspondents” for RINGtv. They reported on a variety of topics, including on the abrupt end of their adventure due to the Corona crisis.