During it’s five years the cross-border journalism programme has provided Russian-speaking journalists from Baltic states, Eastern Europe, Caucasus, Central Asia, Russia, and Ukraine with opportunities to implement international projects, strengthen their regional expertise beyond their local agenda, gain experience in working with colleagues from other countries – as well as high profile editors experienced in global media.

Some Alumni of the programme been nominated and awarded with prestigious professional recognition awards for the cross-border projects they developed during the programme, and some of the them now continue their career in global media.

The 7th season of the cross-border journalism programme will take place in North and South Caucasus. Journalists and freelancers working in teams will develop cross-border projects with a support of experienced mentors and successful Alumni.

To reflect the needs of journalists Perspektivy is running a programme that aims to connect journalists in cross-border collaboration. Participants will be offered distance mentoring and seminars to help them to produce insightful stories. Perspektivy will cover participants’ costs for research trips as part of the project.

The cross-border journalism programme is an opportunity for journalists and freelancers in the early and mid stages of their career looking for the chance to develop their skills in international reporting and enhance their professional network abroad.

Working in teams, participants can produce joint or individual work. These stories can be on any topic, as long as they draw on examples from outside of their home country. Examples of topics include the refugee and migrant crises, climate change, food production and its export/import, media, or civil society. Other ideas are welcome.

Candidates may apply as part of a team, or individually, and allow Perspektivy mentors to match them up with another journalist. Priority will be given to team applications where participants represent different countries and media outlets. For individual applicants, in addition to a story idea, we recommend to give us a list of topics and areas of their journalistic interests for us to successfully invite individual candidates to become a part of other project teams. For team application each member of the team have to fill in the application form individually, and then list the other members of a team in the same field of the application as where the story idea is described.

All candidates must apply with a well thought through story idea, a list of probable costs, and a list of potential members of a team. If they don’t have a team allready, they should mention which countries they are looking for collaborators in.

Successful candidates will receive professional mentoring, assistance for research trips arrangements and reimbursement of costs for those trips. Perspektivy does not practice paying honorariums. Travel costs, accommodation and per diem for both programme launch and closing workshops and seminars will be covered by the programme.

The programme will involve the following activities:

• 11-14 July 2019. Workshops on interviewing skills, longreads, new media formats, and seminars where teams can meet up with Perspektivy mentors to discuss ideas, work on story angles and plan a road-map forward.
• 15 July 2019 – 5 September 2019. A mentoring phase, where the participants return to their home destinations and continue work remotely with experienced mentors and senior journalists as they work on producing their stories.
• Each team can choose most convenient time from the mentoring phase period to undertake short-term research trip to collect information for their cross-border story. Travel costs and per diem will be reimbursed by the programme.
• 6-8 September 2019. Workshops on social media promotion and two days review session where the teams meet again to finalise their pieces and discuss them with mentors and journalists on the scheme.
• 20 September 2019. Approximate date for the publishing of the stories.

Although production of stories is the ultimate outcome, the responsibility for the publication or dissemination of them, rests with the journalists and their professional editors. Perspektivy does not exercise editorial control.

Locations of the seminars will be cities of North and South Caucasus.

Eligibility criteria:

• Journalists and freelancers must apply with a story idea that transcends a national border.
• Priority will be given to those team applications where participants of the team are from different countries and media outlets.
• This scheme is open to journalists, freelancers, bloggers producing stories in Russian for Russian-language media outlets and professionally based in Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the Baltic states, and the Caucasus.
• Applicants must be professional journalists, freelancers, at the early to mid point of their, career with a minimum of three years work experience.
• The working language of the programme is Russian. No translation at any point will be provided.

Applications are now open.
You are welcome to apply for the programme until 12 June 2019 by filling out the on-line application form. You will be asked to provide examples of your work and any form of confirmation from editors who may be interested in publishing the story you applied with. Please note that the size of any uploaded files must not exceed 5 MB.

Click here to begin the application.

Results will be announced on 21 June 2019 after 21:00 Moscow time, using the e-mails applicants provided in their application form. Perspektivy organizers do not comment on results of selection.

Perspektivy is a joint initiative by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the Robert Bosch Stiftung and the Fritt Ord Foundation.

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Read Mentor’s advice and results of seasons 2018

Read examples of how cross-border stories got into global media and gained global professional recognition.

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