January 27, 2017

Media4Change Newsletter #1

We have just delivered our first Media4Change Newsletter. If you want to keep updated with new initiatives, exciting developments and interesting journalistic pieces at Media4Change, subscribe at the bottom of this post.

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At Media4Change.co we work tirelessly to achieve the highest journalistic standards. We organise trainings, workshops, contests and other activities for both professional journalists and students. Our goal is to incorporate a Human Rights approach into journalism.

Welcome to the first issue of our 2017 Newsletter. Our aim is to keep you updated with new initiatives, exciting developments and interesting journalistic pieces at Media4Change.

Thank you for reading and let’s together “Make Journalism the home of Human Rights”.

Pictured is Neringa from our first meeting with the Div-A participants and mentors in Lisbon. Our second meeting will take place in April 2017.

New year, new challenges. Media4Change was one of the lucky few to be selected to participate in Diversity Accelerator (Div-A), a media mentoring program financed by the Council of Europe. The program helps Media outlets and professionals, who are committed to diversity inclusiveness, create their own independent business models in order to become economically independent.

Our mentor, Gergő Sáling, is one of the founders of Direkt36, a center for investigative journalism in Hungary. We are working closely with him to advance Media4Change, and help us in achieving our goal: the establishment of the first investigative journalism agency in Central and Eastern Europe.

What is Diversity Accelerator?

#RefugeesLT: Journalism for Social Change

Redwan Eid is a journalist who was forced to flee his war-torn homeland, Syria. After a long and treacherous journey, he arrived in Lithuania claiming refugee status. In Lithuania, Redwan has found his journalistic experience a useful tool for integration. He now acts as a voice for other refugees, from the Middle East, who have also arrived in Lithuania.

We met him and he told us about the crowdfunding campaign that ‘Lithuania Tribune’ has launched to allow him to continue his journalistic work on a full-time basis #RefugeesLT.

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Turkey: The Prison of Journalists

Gökçe Akyüz is a young journalist, who despite the difficulties journalists face in her homeland, Turkey, still believes in the power of journalism to unravel the truth.

In this article, she gives us an insight into the situation journalists are facing in the aftermath of Turkey’s failed coup: “The media bosses wanted me to write that Turkish soldiers had killed PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party] members, when they had actually killed children”, she writes.

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Young Journalists for Social Change

Our annual Young Journalist training course took place in October 2016. Nineteen enthusiastic participants, from across Lithuania, took part in the intensive five-day program. During which, they learnt how to: write journalistic stories; differentiate information from propaganda and they also increased their awareness and knowledge of Human Rights.

Since then, they have been working hard on their own stories, which we look forward to seeing published soon.

More info

Nils Hanson: A successful Investigative Journalist Shared his Experience in a Meeting with our Young Journalists

“When you are not asking critical and tough questions, this is not showing respect to people, but pity” Hanson says. With more than 20 years experience of challenges, failures and successes, Nils had some interesting insights to share. Want to find out more? Read the article!

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