Journalismfund Europe’s different grant programmes works with a separate and independent jury. All of the juries consist of experienced investigative journalism experts who remain anonymous while undertaking this duty.
As Journalismfund values and promotes transparency in the grant-making processes, we make the jury names public once the experts leave the jury. With SoJo Europe, the grant programme is closing and we are glad to share the names of 4 former jury members who participated in making the programme a success: Lola García-Ajofrín, Ingrid Tinmannsvik, Chibuike Alagboso, and Eva Landahl Kihlman.
All four of them were members of the jury which worked on selecting the best media outlets who could benefit from solutions journalism training and available fundings for investigative and climate projects. The jury members selected 18 cohort members, while the grant received 17 investigative projects and 9 climate projects from the cohort members. The total amount granted combined between investigative and climate projects is €435,941.
- Eva Landahl Kihlman is a Swedish news journalist, who has worked as a publisher in public service TV and radio for 40 years. She has also been responsible for Sveriges Television's election coverage of a large number of elections, both Swedish and foreign. Today, Eva Landahl Kihlman works as a media consultant in Sweden.
The most challenging task was managing to read all the applications carefully. The most rewarding part of the work was the discussions about the different applications. We on the jury often had different perspectives and opinions on the proposals, which made the conversations exciting – Eva Landahl Kihlman
- Lola García-Ajofrín is a Spanish multimedia journalist with 18 years of international reporting experience, with work from the U.S., Afghanistan, Brazil, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Cambodia, China, Sri Lanka, and Armenia. Her stories have appeared in El País, El Confidencial, El Mundo, La Información, and Al Jazeera. She previously coordinated interactive productions at Outriders and now leads cross-border reporting for El Confidencial within the PULSE consortium. She has received several international recognitions, including three European Press Prize nominations. García-Ajofrín is the author of Gigantes de la Educación (Fundación Telefónica) and has served as a mentor at the Solutions Journalism Network.
The most challenging part has been rigorously reviewing all the applications and selecting among several promising proposals. – Lola García-Ajofrín
- Chibuike Alagboso is a public health communication and advocacy specialist with nearly ten years’ experience, driven by a commitment to using strategic communication, data and storytelling to influence public health policy. His interests span social enterprise, health communication, technology and journalism, and he has earned notable fellowships such as the Mandela Washington Fellowship, the LEDE Fellowship and a Journalist-in-Residence role at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Belgium. He writes, trains and mentors journalists globally on solutions journalism, has served as a jury member for the European Journalism Centre’s Global Health Security Grant Awards, and currently mentors for its Solutions Journalism Accelerator. As Senior Programme Manager at Nigeria Health Watch, he leads the Nigeria component of the Solutions Journalism Africa Initiative, which since 2021 has supported 30 newsrooms and trained over 100 journalists to produce more than 200 solutions-focused stories.
The most challenging aspect was assessing a pool of exceptionally strong submissions and knowing that, because of limited funding, not every deserving project could be supported. That tension between potential and finite resources is never easy. However, Journalismfund’s rigorous and collaborative process made the task balanced and fair. Decisions were never left to one person; instead, the system ensured that jury members collectively evaluated alignment and merit before an application was accepted or declined. – Chibuike Alagboso
- Ingrid Tinmannsvik is currently the co-founder of demodemo.no in Norway. It is an arena that brings together the leading forces in narrative journalism where they share techniques and experiences in lectures and conferences to contribute to the most important aspect of journalism. Previously, she was the project manager for constructive journalism at the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK). She was a visual news journalist and video specialist at NRK for the past six years. Tinmannsvik was responsible for developing NRK’s strategy for constructive journalism. As a journalist, her main focus had been to reach a younger audience with news across NRK’s platforms. She graduated from Volda University College.
We extend our gratitude to Eva Landahl Kihlman, Lola García-Ajofrín, Chibuike Alagboso, and Ingrid Tinmannsvik for their invaluable contributions to our grant programme. Their expertise and dedication have been instrumental in advancing solutions journalism.
SoJo Europe grant programme aims to respond to the need for media organisations across Europe to pursue different approaches to increase reader trust, audience share, and revenue by creating a cross-European solutions journalism knowledge hub and encouraging systemic cooperation between professional news media organisations. It is a training, grant, and mentoring programme to stimulate more solutions journalism. The grant programme is supported by the European Union and Arcadia.
