Journalist Fellowship for Infrastructure Reporting in Southeast Asia

Participating journalists will also learn measures and strategies to mitigate potential physical and digital risks that they or the communities involved may face during the production of their stories. Via a hybrid workshop (10 hours online and two days in-person) in November 2024 and subsequent story grants, the fellowship aims to strengthen journalists’ knowledge and skills to produce engaging and impactful stories on infrastructural development while ensuring a Do No Harm approach when engaging and reporting on vulnerable individuals and communities.

Theme

• Earth Journalism Network welcomes story ideas that focus on infrastructure development and the subsequent threats to the environment and human rights of local communities due to activities such as illegal logging or mining and large-scale infrastructure development. It also welcome solutions-driven story pitches highlighting the actions of policymakers, civil society organizations, local communities, and business sectors to deter and mitigate the threats posed by unplanned/unsustainable infrastructure development in Southeast Asia. Participants should submit initial story ideas as part of their application. Story ideas will then be refined throughout the workshop and subsequent mentorship.

Funding Information 

• Pending completion of the training by all 16 participants and submission of approved story pitches, they expect to award 16 story grants with an average budget of $2,000 each in December 2024 and expect the stories to be completed by April 2025.

Eligibility Criteria

• Participants can be from Malaysia, Brunei, Timor Leste, Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines.
  • Applicants must:
  • Commit to attending all days of both the online and in-person workshops.
  • Have at least two years of experience reporting on infrastructure and/or environmental topics in any medium (online, print, video, audio) from all types of media organizations – international, national, local and community-based.
  • Understand and be able to communicate in English.
  • Permit republication by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network of any output as a result of participation in the workshop.
• Especially encouraged early- and mid-career journalists, as well as women and Indigenous journalists, to apply.
• For the purposes of this training opportunity, only accept applications in English will be accepted. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the capacity to consider applications in other languages at this time. Applicants must either have a working understanding of English or have a translator available to assist with communication with Internews staff.
• Applicants are required to be transparent about the use of generative AI tools, if any, in the development of their proposals. EJN reserves the right to disqualify applicants from consideration if they have been found to have engaged in unethical or improper professional conduct, including, but not limited to, submitting AI-generated content as their own.

Judging criteria

• All applications we receive are reviewed and discussed by a panel of international judges, comprising Internews staff and experts in environmental journalism.
• Applicants should consider the following points when devising their story proposals.
• Relevance: Does the proposal meet the criteria and objectives of the call? Why does this story matter and to whom? Is the main idea, context and overall value to the target audience clearly defined?
• Angle: If the story has been covered, does your proposal bring new insights to the topic or offer a fresh angle?
• Impact: Does the proposal have a compelling narrative or investigative element that will inform and engage, draw attention, trigger debate and spur action?
• Innovative storytelling: The use of creative approaches, multimedia and data visualization will be considered a plus.
• Plan for timely publication: Reporters, whether freelance or employed at a media outlet, will need to include a letter of support from an editor in their application, committing to publish the stories ideally by the end of April 2025. Requests for extensions will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

For more information, visit Earth Journalism Network.