Jaime Espina Klima Correspondents Fellowship 2024 (Philippines)

The Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC) launched the Jaime Espina Klima Correspondents Fellowship, aiming to provide space for climate and energy stories in Philippine communities by training provincial journalists and media practitioners.

This year’s run of the Fellowship is open to all professional journalists across the Philippines.

Funding Information

• Each team will receive a grant of up to P100,000.

Eligibility Criteria

• The Fellowship is open to professional journalists, correspondents, and freelancers, working in any medium (print, online, television, radio). They also accept applications from journalists whose works are published in international news outfits, though they highly encourage applicants to engage and secure local or national publication interest in publishing the report/s they will produce under the Fellowship.
• Fellows need not be reporters covering climate and energy issues. They strongly encourage journalists assigned to different beats and assignments, such as politics, metro, culture, business, tourism, and lifestyle, among others, to join the Fellowship and learn how climate and energy stories can be developed based on current coverage.
• Interested applicants must form a team, consisting of one reporter/ journalist, and one visual storyteller.
• Fellowship organizers reserve the right to decline applications if the applicants are found to have engaged in unethical professional conduct.

Application Requirements

• Journalists who are interested in applying should follow this process:
  • Teams should be composed of: One reporter/ journalist, and one visual storyteller.
  • A (maximum) 500-word story proposal that includes a geographic focus, approach or treatment of the content, and the potential impact. These elements will help them better understand your story proposal.
  • Applicants can consider any story themes related to climate and energy such as, but not limited to, the following:
    • Efforts to accelerate the energy transition towards affordable, sustainable, reliable, and efficient energy systems, by any of the following: local government units, national government agencies, academic institutions; electric cooperatives, micro, small, and medium enterprises; and household or community initiatives;
    • Renewable energy strategies and systems powering humanitarian responses and community build-back-better strategies and low carbon resilience programs;
    • Small- to large-scale initiatives demonstrating collaborations among government, civil society, and the private sector to promote renewable energy; and
    • Efforts to promote new thinking and analysis in low carbon development-driven economics or scientific explorations, covering different areas other than the power sector, such as tourism, agriculture, health, education, and cities.
  • Specify the format of your story. It can take the form of traditional written narratives accompanied by images, for print and online publication; multimedia; animation; a short documentary; or a podcast series. In particular, stories can be in the form of:
    • One multi-part story series with at least five (5) curated photos;
    • Three short written articles with at least three (3) curated photos each;
    • One full video documentary with at least 15-minute running time; or
    • Two audiovisual stories of at least seven minutes for each output.
  • Include an outline of your story production, including research, fieldwork, writing, and editing. Publication should be in March, at the latest.
  • Applicants should also submit a work plan, which must include the budget, timeline, and distribution plan. A more detailed plan, including target interviews/references, travel details, timeline, budget, and an updated distribution plan, will be requested from selected Fellows at a later date.
  • Letter of intent addressed to the ICSC Executive Director, signed by all members of the applying team.
  • Statement of support from the affiliated publication, with the commitment to publish the story/stories produced by the Fellows.
  • Updated CV and sample works (maximum of three) of the journalists (stories on climate and energy are preferred, but not required).

For more information, visit ICSC.