Collaborative and Investigative Journalism Initiative
The “Collaborative and Investigative Journalism Initiative” (CIJI) aims to equip independent media outlets and individual journalists with resources, innovative networking infrastructure and standards-based methods that enable them to practice high-quality, and ethical and accountable collaborative and investigative journalism. It aims at providing enabling environments for individual journalists and existing news media outlets to excel, and for start-ups to emerge and succeed.
CIJI is currently in its second edition, running for a period of two years, between 2023 and 2025, and covering countries of the European Union, EU candidate countries, as well as journalists originally from Ukraine, Belarus, Russia who are legally residing in the EU as a result of the war in Ukraine or related to its imposed media censorship. The first edition of CIJI (2021 - 2022) covered the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the Visegrád Four (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) and Southern Europe (Greece, Italy and Spain).
CIJI is carried out in partnership by Tactical Tech (TT), Free Press Unlimited (FPU), Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Fundacja Reporterow (FR), OBC Transeuropa (OBCT) and Delfi, and aims to become a network-based initiative that promotes ethical standards, offers training and capacity building opportunities and a forum for collaboration and peer-support.
This project is co-funded by the European Union.
What does the programme offer?
CIJI will award grants worth up to 50,000 EUR to established local/regional media organisations to support their capacity to act as local/regional hubs for the community of cross-border, collaborative & investigative journalists.
Ten long-term reporting grants (up to 10,000 EUR each) will be awarded to newsrooms and individual journalists to support their cross-border collaborative investigations with the potential for high societal impact.
CIJI will offer a fellowship and training opportunities on topics like advanced collaborative journalism, digital investigation skills, and safety.
CIJI will serve as a single access point to a variety of investigation and collaboration opportunities and resources. It will support exchanges among its members and share best practices and case studies.
CIJI will provide a global, value-based framework of ethical standards, based on the Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI). This instrument allows participants to self-evaluate their processes and practices, upgrade them if needed, and to make the results visible in order to enhance trust both externally vis-à-vis audiences, and internally when collaborating with each other.
CIJI will provide a collaborative environment across borders and facilitate a regional network for collaboration and peer-support. Members will have opportunities to engage with fellow colleagues in their own countries, but also on a regional level.
Resources
A collection of resources on safety, ethics, investigation methods, tools and best practices for journalists, media organisations and other civil society members using investigation as a means to expose issues in their communities or across borders.
Call open for three regional media hubs
Free Press Unlimited is inviting media organisations to apply for grants of 50,000 EUR to act as CIJI regional hubs of collaborative and investigative journalism.
