Investigative Journalism Training and €5,000 Award
Are you a local journalist, aspiring journalist or media activist with an interest in doing investigative journalism?
The EU-funded project S-INFO – Sustainable Information invites you to join its free two-day training program in investigative journalism that will take place in Malta in early October.
Repubblika is a partner in S-INFO alongside three other activist and journalism organisations from Italy, Belgium and Romania, each of which is organising a similar course.
Participation in the Maltese training course will make you eligible to compete for a €5,000 grant, co-financed by the EU, to pursue an investigation in any one of these three areas: corruption, social justice or environment. The investigation will need to take place in collaboration with one of the several civil society organisations that have joined S-INFO’s network.
Eight €5,000 grants are up for grabs in all, two in each country. They will be awarded to individual course participants – two of them from Malta – following a story pitching competition in November. The selected stories should take a maximum of six months to complete and will be published on the S-INFO and partner websites in 2025 following review by S-INFO’s editors.
The training course, which will be in English, will take place on October 3 and 4, 2004 from 9am to 5pm on both days. The venue is the lovely penthouse at Mount St Joseph Retreat House in Mosta, with lunch and coffee breaks included and gardens where you can relax in between sessions.
The trainers will be:
- Natalino Fenech, former environmental activist, award-winning writer, veteran journalist and editor, senior lecturer at MCAST’s Institute for the Creative Arts.
- Bertrand Borg, former human rights educator, former journalist at Melbourne’s The Age, former senior journalist and now online editor at Times of Malta.
- Manuel Delia, former prime minister’s press secretary, author, activist, investigative journalist, blogger, columnist, executive officer for Repubblika.
- Mark Wood, former journalist, former editor of The Sunday Times of Malta, former print editor of Times of Malta, project coordinator for Repubblika.
- Therese Comodini Cachia, lawyer, former MEP and MP, expert in journalism law including FOI, whistleblower and European media regulations.
- Daiva Repeckaite, investigative journalist published in Politico Europe, Foreign Policy, Deutsche Welle and other international media, who has worked on investigations with OCCRP and Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation.
- Mark Laurance Zammit, former popular TV presenter with Xarabank and other programmes, and now one of Malta’s leading investigative journalists working with Times of Malta.
The training will combine lectures with workshops. Among the subjects covered will be:
- What makes for good investigative journalism
- The process, from ideation to publication
- Legal and ethical considerations
- Cross-border investigations
- How to create a video explainer
- How to pitch an investigative story
- A guide to journalist-activist collaboration
- Initiation of journalist-activist team building
Our main goal is to equip aspiring investigative journalists and media activists with some of the essential skills and professional knowledge needed to conduct effective investigative reporting. The training also offers a unique opportunity to build your network of contacts with both media professionals and civil society organisations.
Prospective participants will have produced at least one report published in a news outlet. In making the final selection we will also consider gender balance in proportion to the applications received. Applicants may need to be interviewed.
For any clarifications, please contact Mark Wood at mwood667@nullgmail.com.
To apply, fill in the form by using the button below.