2024 EJN Reporting Fellowships for environmental reporters. – Opportunities For Africans

Application Deadline: 16 November 2023, 11:59 PM, 

To mark its 20th anniversary in 2024, EJN is pleased to announce the launch of a new year-long fellowship program for journalists which will enhance reporting over four priority areas — climate change, biodiversity, the ocean and One Health. 

EJN is seeking four exceptional environmental reporters for a new fellowship initiative which will provide journalistic training and mentorship, a quarterly salary stipend and funding for story production, travel and professional development opportunities. Each of these four Fellows will primarily focus on a different area of environmental journalism — climate change, biodiversity, the ocean and One Health — and will develop their skills and networks to become leaders in these reporting spaces. EJN Reporting Fellows will also have the opportunity to broaden their understanding and produce stories in the other three thematic areas.  

One fellowship will be awarded for each thematic area of reporting, and interested journalists must indicate which fellowship they wish to apply for. EJN Fellows that are awarded this first-of-its-kind opportunity will: 

  • Attend an orientation workshop hosted by EJN to strengthen their reporting skills and meet the other participating Fellows; 
  • Receive mentorship from senior journalists with expertise in each thematic area to provide 1-1 guidance, reporters’ resources and editorial support for their reporting; 
  • Build thematic expertise by learning from and interviewing experts in all four focus areas; 
  • Hone reporting skills through training on data journalism, Mojo, solutions journalism, fact checking, data visualization and more;  
  • Receive a quarterly stipend of 6,000 EUR to cover expenses for story production and the Fellows’ time; 
  • Receive 6,000 EUR per Fellow to cover travel to conferences, travel for story production, professional development opportunities and more; 
  • Engage in peer-to-peer learning and exchange.  

Eligibility

Eligible applicants for the EJN Reporting Fellowship must: 

  • Be a professional journalist from or representing an established media house and reporting from a low- or middle-income country. 
  • Have a minimum of 5 years of journalistic experience. 
  • Have demonstrable interest and experience reporting on one of the four thematic areas, and provide recent, relevant and journalistic work samples on those topics, which can be uploaded as documents or web links.
  • Be able to participate fully in an English-language fellowship. For the purposes of this opportunity, we will only be accepting applications in English. 
  • Commit to participating in all fellowship activities, with the full support of their media house. 
  • Commit to being part of an online community with current and future Fellows. 
  • Have strong and stable internet access for the purposes of virtual activities (minimum 1.2Mbps).
  • Provide a signed letter of support from an editor, producer, or supervisor who can confirm that you will be allocated time to participate in all fellowship activities (equivalent of 2 days per week for the duration of the fellowship), and that reports will be published or broadcast in an established media outlet. Freelancers are welcome to apply but must provide a letter of support from a media outlet for which they intend to report. The template for this letter of support is provided for freelancers here and staffers here
  • Provide 2 signed professional references (letters of recommendation) from supervisors or professional associates who are familiar with your journalistic abilities, qualifications, training and interests. 

Logistics and expectations 

  • Fellows will be expected to dedicate the minimum equivalent of 2 days per week to fellowship activities, which may include but is not limited to story production, attendance at fellowship workshops and other training activities, calls with mentors and travel to conferences. 
  • Each Fellow will have a reporting focus on one of the four priority areas, but Fellows will also have the opportunity to receive training on the other three topics and encouraged to write stories on these topics as well. To facilitate this, Fellows will work with a new mentor each quarter who has expertise in climate change, biodiversity, the ocean and One Health. 
  • Fellows will be expected to attend monthly virtual seminars to develop their journalistic skills on topics such as data journalism, mobile journalism, solutions journalism, fact checking, data visualization and more. We will do our best to accommodate convenient timings for these seminars across all time zones, but Fellows may need to be prepared to join seminars at inconvenient hours. 

For More Information:

Visit the Official Webpage of the 2024 EJN Reporting Fellowships

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