Climate and Energy Fellowships for Journalists in Europe

Background

There is a significant lack of cross-border reporting on climate and energy issues in the European media landscape. Coverage is mainly concentrated on political issues, exchange of ideas in the climate and energy sector is therefore often limited to experts. Additionally, not enough bilateral and multilateral networks for journalists in the climate and energy sector exist to ensure the exchange of trustful information.

Project

The project provides annual fellowships for journalists from Germany, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia, who are interested in reporting in the field of climate and energy issues and gives them the opportunity to live and work abroad.
Within the project framework, two journalistic organisations – the International Journalists’ Programme (IJP) and the Clean Energy Wire (CLEW) – cooperate to provide participants with a deep and detailed insight into the field of climate and energy.
For six to eight weeks, participants stay in one of the host countries. They get to know the country better, establish contacts to local journalists, and deepen their knowledge on climate and energy issues. The project matches participants with a local media outlet, where they are part of the daily workflow. They also have the opportunity to work on their own journalistic projects and to report about climate and energy issues for media in their home country.
After the exchange, the participants stay in touch with each other through the IJP alumni network, which supports them in building a journalistic expert network.