ABOUT

Collaborative and Investigative Journalism Initiative

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 fora for collaboration and peer-support.

Tactical Tech

Tactical Tech (TT) is an international non-profit organisation with 20+ years of experience in leading capacity building projects and collaborative investigation resources with and for journalists and other media actors around the world. TT's "Exposing the Invisible" project develops resources, trainings and collaborations promoting investigation as one of the most important forms of public engagement.

Free Press Unlimited

Free Press Unlimited (FPU) is an international non-profit organisation based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, that works to make independent news and information available to everyone, particularly in countries with limited (press) freedom. Free Press Unlimited helps journalists and media professionals with emergency support, advice, training and capacity building in more than 50 countries, together with over 300 local media partners worldwide.

Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is a Paris-based non-profit organisation that promotes journalistic freedom, pluralism and independence. This includes defending those who embody these ideals. RSF provides information about the media freedom situation throughout the world and provides journalists with concrete support by means of campaigns, advocacy, litigation, legal aid and material assistance. RSF has also launched initiatives designed to promote the right to reliable news and information, especially in the digital domain.

Fundacja Reporterow is a Warsaw-based nonprofit journalistic organisation focused on independent, investigative, cross-border journalism in Poland and Central Europe. The organisation’s mission is the development of investigative journalism and publishing of high-quality stories in the public interest. Fundacja runs vsquare.org, a regional platform providing cross-border stories from the Visegrád region. “We believe that a joint effort of journalists from different media organisations and countries of the region can better serve our societies. The award will help FR and its V4 partners to strengthen collaboration between journalists from the Visegrád region”, said Anna Gielewska, FR’s vice-chairman and Vsquare’s Head of investigations and partnerships.

OBC Transeuropa (OBCT) is a think-tank based in Trento, Italy. By running the news site balcanicaucaso.org, it has a strong focus on South-East Europe but also covers European issues more in general. Its core mission is to strengthen the transnational public sphere in Europe, by letting unheard stories emerge, favouring cross-border journalism, and defending media freedom. Its target audience is a transnational community of actors primarily based in the Adriatic-Ionian region. It offers content in Italian, English and BCHS.

DELFI AB, owned by the Estonian media company Ekspress Grupp, was launched in 2001 and currently operates Lithuania’s main news portal www.delfi.lt and the TV channel Delfi TV.

The plentiful and professional team of DELFI journalists, photographers, and video content creators works hard every day to bring their audience timely, objective, and reliable news from Lithuania and all over the world, TV and photo reports, exclusive-content projects, and analytical articles as well as covers other relevant topics in the Lithuanian, Russian, and English languages.

By ensuring diverse opinions and promoting discussions on the most socially significant issues, DELFI can remain focused on the chosen mission – to protect and disseminate democratic values (freedom, equality, and sociality).

Fortifying the collaborative journalism ecosystem

The investigative journalism community has proven its ability to uncover and produce impactful and innovative stories on the world’s most dire challenges. Media and journalists make a difference with their investigative journalism work, a power that may now be more necessary than ever. Meanwhile, the community faces increasing safety, financial and logistical challenges that call for urgent action.

Through resources, training, innovative networking infrastructure and standards-based methods, CIJI will continue collaborating closely with independent media outlets and individual media actors to achieve our main goal: to fortify the collaborative journalism ecosystem.

The second edition of CIJI, running between 2023 - 2025, is developed and implemented in partnership between Delfi, Free Press Unlimited (FPU), Fundacja Reporterow (FR), OBC Transeuropa (OBCT), Reporters Without Borders (RSF), and Tactical Tech (TT).

By advancing collaboration practices and nurturing the exchange of knowledge among media and journalists spanning from the Baltics to Central-Eastern Europe and further south into Southeast and Southern Europe, CIJI aims to promote high-quality, ethical and accountable collaborative and investigative journalism.

The project will also focus on supporting and connecting journalists in exile and refugee journalists from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia to media and practitioners from Central Europe to increase capacity and strengthen the journalistic landscape along the whole eastern European borders. CIJI will expand the resources developed in the first project iteration (2021/2022), including investigation guides, training curricula, audio-visual material and more, with the aim of including more topics, methods and further adaptation to at least 15 languages.

Through its partnership-driven and collaborative approach to content creation and skills-sharing, CIJI is designed to support local ownership and ensure the longer-term sustainability of the action.