More information
Description
Over the last couple of years Poland dropped from the 18th (in 2015) position of the Reporters Without Borders press freedom ranking to the 66th (in 2022). Authors of the 2021 ‘A New Deal for Journalism’ report (Forum on Information & Democracy) argue that independent journalism is now facing numerous threats – financial crisis, decline of public trust and the rebirth of authoritarian governance. Since 2015, the media market in Poland has been being largely politicised and centralised, and there are no occasions for independent media (both local and national) to exchange experience and knowledge.We will address these problems by creating an Investigative Journalism Hub – a cooperation and exchange programme between local media and journalists or investigative journalists. We will organise Investigaton – a investigative journalism marathon for journalists from local and national media. During the event we will run workshops and will initiative cooperation between teams. We want journalists to support one another in raising their competencies and enrich the workshop with new work tools. The Investigative Journalism Hub, namely the network of investigative journalists will be based on cooperation and not competition, e.g., members will gather data together and work in teams. Within the Hub we will support cooperation between teams by means of mentoring, knowledge exchange and access to new work tools. We will support groups of journalists in their work on topics that are crucial for local communities and are of supralocal significance.
Summary of project results
In the Reporters Without Borders ranking, Poland has fallen from 18th place (in 2015) to 66th (in 2022) in terms of media freedom in just a few years. According to the authors of the 2021 report A New Deal for Journalism (Forum on Information & Democracy), independent journalism faces several threats - a financial crisis, declining public trust, and resurgent authoritarian governments. In the case of Poland after 2015, the media market has been largely politicized and centralized, and there has been a lack of opportunities for the exchange of experience and knowledge between independent media (both national and local).
In respond to those problems, The Reporters Foundation launched the Investigative Journalism Hub - a state-of-the-art centre for collaboration and learning for investigative journalists and reporters, bringing together the needs of local and national media. The initiative is based on the belief that modern journalism should be based on collaboration rather than competition. Modern investigative journalism also requires access to up-to-date knowledge, tools and technology, as well as adherence to the highest standards of fact-checking, source protection and physical and digital security. Journalists from local and national media were invited to Investigathon- an investigative journalism marathon. During the event, workshops and activities in inter-editorial teams were held. The idea behind it was for journalists to support each other in improving their competencies and expanding their skills with new working tools.
The Hub is also a space to support inter-editorial journalistic collaboration and offers support to local journalists through an ad hoc mentoring programme. The aim of the mentoring programme was to help journalists (in terms of content, technology and legal issues) to work effectively, reliably and to the highest journalistic standards, and thus to pursue and publicise issues of social importance.
The project was mainly targeted at journalists who had the opportunity to structure their existing knowledge. The evaluation, showed that the participants discovered new methods of using the tools which they had been using before and they emphasized the importance of teamwork in a diverse group.
As a result of the work of the inter-editorial teams, coordinated and supported by the FR mentors, two investigative pieces were published on issues of importance to the Polish public opinion and local communities. The findings of the first investigation were published in the report Poland is sitting on a bomb. The investigation also led to the creation of Poland''s first interactive map of hazardous waste sites, which is still used by public institutions. The second investigative piece was Banknote litter and was published on frontstory.pl, supernowosci24.pl, czaschojnic.pl and gazeta.pl. The project is an example of a model that respects the work of local journalists.
As an additional activity, a film was created to summarise and discuss the earlier project. A training course for 17 people on formatting and strategy building for local portals was organised, which was attended by a dozen people. There were works on improving and updating the Lokalsi 4.0 app, which had been created as part of an earlier project. A continuity and knowledge consolidation strategy based on the evaluation of all elements of the main project was created. We developed recommendations and a fundraising strategy for the next editions of Investigathon and a development plan for the Investigative Journalism Hub, including a mentoring consultation programme. The organisation also strengthened its competences and access to cutting-edge knowledge through the participation of trainers in two international journalism conferences - International Journalism Festival, 17-21.04 2024 (Perugia, Italy) and Dataharvest The European Investigative Journalism Conference, 30.05-2.06 2024 (Mechelen, Belgium).