Open Call for Thai-Myanmar Media Fellowship 2023

Throughout the program, journalists will develop their research and reporting skills while being guided by the organizing team and guest speakers.

The long-term goal is to create solid editorial partnerships, relationships of trust, and a strong information-sharing collective across borders.

The fellowship will focus on issues linked to “Thai – Myanmar Business and Human Rights”, and lead to the production and publication of impactful reporting in regional media, with the hope of leading to policy changes and public awareness.

Twelve participants are expected to develop ideas and work together in small teams comprising four people from different nationalities and skill sets i.e. writing, researching, photographing, video shooting, graphic design, data visualization, etc. Each team will be supported by a seed grant to complete their collective work in a four-month time frame starting in September.

Each session will cover a different sub-topic in order to give solid tools to the investigative teams of participants and make their work more impactful and of interest to the general public. Planned sessions include themes such as geo- and chronolocation tools to collect data with open-source software, tracking traces of financial transactions, and identifying names and profiles in armies or companies.

After the program, Thai and Myanmar participants are encouraged to collaborate on stories that will move or change their respective societies. The stories will then be shown in various forms to the public as individual features of collective exhibitions/conferences. The organizers will support them by sharing potential interview partners and offering research and methodology advice.

Requirements

• Thai and Myanmar journalists/researchers with at least one year of experience in researching, analyzing data, and reporting.
• Commit to join all in-person and online sessions of the program.
• Commit to work, follow up, and complete publication with your teammates according to the schedule planned.
• Have sufficient English language skills for communication within the team and for reporting (interpretation will be provided during training sessions).
• Skills such as photography, video editing, or data visualization are a plus.
• Able to travel across Thailand.

Expectations from the Fellows

• Participants are expected to produce one investigative story under the key theme of “Thai-Myanmar Business and Human Rights” per team and publish it by 31 December 2023.
• Each team may produce stories in any medium, including print, online, radio, broadcast, etc, and in any language.
• Each team is encouraged to shape and pitch the stories to regional and international media outlets to be shared with wider audiences.
• Published stories should disclose organizers’ support by including this tagline- “This story was produced with the support of the Thai-Myanmar Media Fellowship 2023 organized by Visual Rebellion Myanmar and the Spirit in Education Movement.”

For more information, visit Spirit in Education Movement (SEM).