Description
Many organizations find ensuring visibility in the media and reaching a greater audience a challenge. The media under utilize their expertise and only sporadically reports their achievements. As a result, the quality of the information reaching the citizen also suffers. The project promotes better media - NGO collaboration, in order to achieve greater visibility for the non-governmental sector and assist journalists in bringing high quality information to the public. To help journalists find the experts they need, we create a user-friendly online resource with specific information about the activities and expertise of NGOs. We also mobilize a team of 6 journalists, coordinated by a highly experienced journalist, to develop 8 investigations/articles that will incorporate information garnered from NGOs. We disseminate the „Journalism pros work with NGOs” approach and its results through media campaigns and events. The project benefits the organizations and journalists involved in the development of the articles, the NGOs included in the database, as well as all journalists who access our resources and members of the public reached by our press materials.
Summary of project results
NGOs have trouble ensuring their visibility in the media and their impact on the public at large, which is a major obstacle in meeting their goals. Moreover, the media underutilises the expertise of NGOs and only sporadically reports their achievements. The quality of information reaching the audience suffers from lack of expertise. The main activities of the project were: identification of Romanian NGOs and their experts and including them in a database that would highlight this expertise, 8 articles and investigations written by the team of journalists using the expertise of Romanian NGOs, 6 events (3 information sessions meant to gather information from NGO experts for the investigations, 2 roundtables meant to promote the investigation and the model of collaboration proposed by the project, and 1 final workshop presenting the results of the project and promoting the collaboration model as a good practice). The database, comprising more than 240 Romanian NGOs and experts working in fields such as children’s rights, young people, migration, human trafficking, public policies or media, was implemented on the project website, being available for both the civil society sector and media. It includes a powerful search engine as well as options of editing data and adding a new NGO/expert. The team of journalists drafted 8 investigations focusing on the modern forms of child exploitation, the opinions of experts working for children's rights, the situation of children left home alone by their parents who went to work in foreign countries, discrimination against the Romanian LGBTQ+ community, children’s diet in schools, deforestation and the safeguarding of the Romanian national heritage. The 8 investigations were composed of 47 articles and interviews. Various Romanian NGOs were consulted and 11 of these offered their expertise through the voices of 13 experts. The project capitalised on the expertise of nongovernmental organisations and the impact of journalistic investigations, in order to promote the collaboration between the media and NGOs. By providing access to relevant sources of information and expertise, as well as by promoting the investigations drafted with the use of NGO expertise, the collaboration model positioned itself as a good practice with advantages for both parts. The reach of the project can be estimated at around 2 million people.
Summary of bilateral results