Transcript Brigitte Alfter - Journalists help journalists

Journalists help journalists
Support structures for investigative reporting
Brigitte Alfter, journalist, manager of the Scoop project and director for the
European Fund for Investigative Journalism
The role of Civil Society in Combating Corruption – Brussels – January 29th, 2009
Fake witnesses in Kremenchuk

A journalist in a provincial town was wondering about an
observation: It appeared, that two witnesses appeared before all
court cases relating to drugs. But she doesn’t have the time to
take a closer look.

She applies for a research grant from Scoop and starts
investigating her suspicion.

The analysis of the judgements in the court archives prove her
suspicion right, and the Kremenchuk Telegraph covers the story.

The journalist also proves other irregularities in the drug squad,
and the head of the drug squad is removed.

http://www.i-scoop.org/uploads/media/fake_witnesses_english.pdf
Resumé http://www.i-scoop.org/index.php?id=24&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=91&tx_ttnews[backPid]=21&cHash=157eb91b88&MP=24-49

The Scoop model – how it got started

Ukrainian colleague in 2002: We have had a lot of training,
but we neither have the ressources to do research nor good
examples to learn from.

Scoop was operational since 2003 run by two Danish
organisations based upon the idea of journalists helping
journalists.

Odessa story about child-porn-production proved model right
and showed importance of international contacts.

Danish association for investigative journalism, www.fuj.dk, International Media Support www.i-m-s.dk
Child pornography,
Slovo, Ukraine
http://www.i-scoop.org/index.php?id=24&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=677&tx_ttnews[backPid]=21&cHash=4f5b1c6de5&MP=24-49
The Scoop model – how to apply

www.i-scoop.org

Scoop-Classic: All non-EU countries on the Balkans, Ukraine,
Belarussia / Scoop-Caucasus: Georgia, Armenia, Azerbajdjan

Contact national coordinator or Danish manager

Application to include:
 Subject to be investigated, pre-research
 Research plan
 Budget
 Declaration of interest by editor
Turning on the light:
Energy brokers
Eight countries
http://www.reportingproject.net/index.htm
The importance of networking

Power brokers:




Cross-border research + co-funding = unique
result
Scoop model: Journalists help journalists
Integration into the global network
Various models for cross-border research


Story-by-story team
Fixed team varying stories
Rent a
womb:
Ukraine,
Germany,
Austria,
Denmark,
Russia
And in the EU?

Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU and had
to leave Scoop

Western European media are hit by a mediacrisis, even established media have less
money for research journalism

Time of change is time of chance
European Fund for Investigative
Journalism, EFIJ

Idea in 2005, fundraising attempts since then

Start-up money in autumn 2008, run as a project of the Belgian
Fonds Pascal Decroos

Target group EU plus Switzerland, Norway etc

Pilot-projects spring 2009

Firmly rooted in European investigative journalism community

Anonymous jury
www.fondspascaldecroos.org/en
Who pays?
And what about editorial independence?

Scoop until now mainly funded by Danish foreign ministry
(democracy programme, neighbourhood programme) and
smaller amounts by private funds such as OSI, Carlsberg,
Lannung


Fonds Pascal Decroos, mainly funded by Flemish regional
government, independent anonymous jury


FUJ guarantees editorial independence
An independent and anonymous jury guarantees editorial independence
European Fund for Investigative Journalism, seed funding by
Norwegian foundation Fritt Ord.

An independent and anonymous jury guarantees editorial independence
Links and contact

The Scoop Project www.i-scoop.org

The European Fund for Investigative Journalism
www.efij.eu (to go online in February 09)

The global network
www.globalinvestigativejournalism.org

Brigitte Alfter, [email protected]