For quite some time, the Fritt Ord Foundation has had media and journalism as one of its core target areas. In the current demanding situation being experienced by the media, and thereby by the public sphere as a whole, we aspire to do even more to support and promote high-quality journalism in several fields.

The call for applications has seven deadlines for applications during the year. The next deadline is Monday, 19 February 2018, at 3 p.m. Applications should be submitted to the Fritt Ord Foundation’s application centre.

Renewed initiative
The new initiative represents nearly a doubling of the Fritt Ord Foundation’s grants for journalism, which have totalled between MNOK 12 and 15 per year thus far. The scheme is in furtherance of the initiative Quality journalism in a new era, which ran from 2015 to 2017.

In addition to the funding set aside for Norwegian Journalism, grants will be made to central, journalism-related fields such as documentary films, documentary photos and journalistic factual prose. These will continue to be important priorities for Fritt Ord in the ordinary rounds of applications and they are not under the purview of this scheme.

Application requirements
The initiative is completely open when it comes to topics. When applying for project support, journalists, editors and editorial staffs are free to choose the topics and contents of their projects. The Foundation’s goal is to help facilitate projects that can become important parts of the social debate for as many people as possible.

The projects are intended to target the general public. Applicants may use any publication platform and are encouraged to be multi-medial. Any independent, editor-driven publication with Norwegian media users as its target group may apply. The applicants may be editorial boards or individuals, but all support is to go to named individuals. We are open to new forms of cooperation between several editorial boards/groups of journalists, and freelancers with publication agreements are invited to apply.

We aspire to the highest possible degree to support work on content to be published, while providing less support for operating expenses, technical development projects and the acquisition of equipment.

We ask that project outlines be as specific as possible, covering 3 to 5 pages, accompanied by brief attachments containing a timetable, information about other sources of funding, an overall project budget and a list of project team members with five lines of CV information on each.

Label the application “Norwegian Journalism” in the title field. For guidance with the application process, contact Executive Director Knut Olav Åmås at knut.olav.amas@frittord.no.

See here for list of the approximately 200 projects received support under the scheme Quality journalism in a new era – 2015-2017, the Foundation’s most recent journalism campaign.

Link to the press release about the initiative from September 2017.