After a decade of grant-making, Stichting Democratie en Media has shifted its focus from supporting individual journalism projects to addressing the structural conditions shaping the media landscape. Director Nienke Venema explains why the organisation changed course.
Stichting Democratie en Media has supported a free press for eight decades and has operated as a grant-making organisation for the past 10 years. What are the most important lessons you have learned from these 10 years of funding journalism?
Between 2015 and 2024, we spent half of our grant budget, €10.3 million in total, on initiatives building a future-proof journalism for our democracy. Three lessons stand out.
First: dare to go first. When we backed something new, other funders found it easier to follow. Early, sometimes riskier support turned out to be a powerful lever.
Second: invest not only in stories, but in the foundations beneath them. Alongside investigative projects such as the Shell Papers, on the close ties between Shell and the Dutch state, we supported SPOON, an expertise centre for people filing freedom of information requests, and an endowed chair in investigative journalism at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Structures like these make quality journalism possible in the long run.
Third: measure what you achieve. In our impact report, 83 percent of grantees said their project had brought about real social change. Because these evaluations were anonymous, we attach great value to that result.
Rethinking the Role of a Funder
You have recently decided to pursue a new strategic direction and no longer operate as a fund. What are the reasons behind this shift, and what do you hope the new approach will achieve?
These times call for something different. Our media landscape is under enormous pressure from global tech giants. With their algorithms and chatbots, they dominate which information reaches us and how, and that directly affects our democracy. The key question is: what digital infrastructure will shape our public sphere? Algorithms controlled by tech giants that are not accountable, or a media landscape grounded in democratic values? To us, this is the defining issue of our time, and it goes to the heart of why Stichting Democratie en Media was founded in 1944.
Our mission has two parts: promoting a pluralistic media landscape that serves our democracy, and fostering public opinion formation in the spirit of the rule of law. The first part was becoming increasingly urgent. We realised that someone needed to take this on, and that we could be that someone. SDM is uniquely placed to do so: rooted in the history of the Dutch resistance newspaper Het Parool, financially independent, and strong enough to stand firm where others can’t.
At the same time, we asked ourselves whether funding other people’s projects was still the best way to fulfil our mission. Grant-making takes a great deal of time and energy. We want to act with care, respond to everyone and take every application seriously, whether it is for €2,000 or €20,000, and we need to keep monitoring and evaluating. With limited time and resources, we found we could not do both this and our new role well.
We closed our fund at the end of 2025, carefully winding down existing commitments and taking into account the interests of long-standing grantees. It was not an easy decision, but it was the right one. We were never founded as a fund, but as a guardian of media in service of our democracy. We are proud to have supported so many initiatives for so long, but our mission and position now ask something different of us. With our new direction, we aim to secure the future of trustworthy media and renew it where needed, so that our democracy remains strong and resilient.
What kinds of activities will Stichting Democratie en Media focus on, and how will you continue to support journalism and media freedom?
The big question is: will we still have an independent, pluralistic media landscape in ten or twenty years? Trustworthy media are indispensable right now. They allow citizens to stay informed, hold those in power to account, and enable debate based on shared facts. We no longer support journalism through grants, but by working on the conditions that allow journalism to exist. We do so on three levels:
- Infrastructure: making sure the rules for media match today’s digital reality.
- Sector: helping the media sector become resilient and able to reinvent itself.
- Content: ensuring that new ideas feed public thinking about the future of democracy.
Last November, we initiated an urgent letter to the Dutch government on behalf of the entire media sector, public and private. 24 media organisations signed it. In it, we warned that our society is losing its grip on truth-seeking, pluralistic news and information. As a follow-up, we are bringing this media coalition together with government ministers to formulate a joint response to the growing influence of Big Tech on Dutch public information. Together, we are now working towards a Media Pact.
We also run Het Grote Mediadebat (The Great Media Debate) with our media partner NU.nl. It is research, conversation, and campaign in one, about how people in the Netherlands experience the news, what they miss, what worries them, and what could be better. These are not questions for media experts alone. They are about how we live together and about the future of our democracy. That is why we hold this conversation with the public: online, through research and at meetups across the country.
Every year, we also bring the entire media sector together at our event Media voor Democratie (Media for Democracy). For one day, the people who largely shape our media landscape, including editors-in-chief, publishers, executives, regulators, researchers, senior civil servants and journalists, explore its future together. It is the only place where leaders from public and private media meet in this way, because we believe the challenges ahead can only be met together.
Fewer Partners, Deeper Collaborations
Will the new strategy change the kinds of organisations or initiatives you work with? If so, what will you be looking for in potential partners?
Yes, we will be working with fewer organisations, and in a different way. Rather than funding individual projects, we work closely with a small number of partners on shared goals, such as the media coalition behind the Media Pact and NU.nl for Het Grote Mediadebat. For now, we are not looking for new partners.
Over the past decade, what have been the biggest challenges in supporting journalism? Did any of these challenges contribute to the decision to change your strategy?
The last couple of years, our biggest challenge was that it never felt sufficient. Individual projects can make a real difference, but the pressure on our media landscape is structural. Without a healthy public debate, our democracy cannot function. That is a key reason why we changed course: we are now focusing on the future of our public information landscape as a whole.
How do you assess the success or impact of your programmes? Can you share a particular success story?
We have only just begun, so it is too early for a full assessment. But the urgent letter we mentioned earlier is a good example of what we are aiming for. Even the incoming prime minister responded to it, and together with the media coalition we are now working on the follow-up: a Media Pact. Considering Het Grote Mediadebat: we have been overwhelmed by the response and support. Clearly, there was a real need for an organisation to step into this gap.
Do you have any special advice for organisations that have not funded or supported journalism yet, but are thinking about doing so?
Media are the lifeline of a healthy democracy: it cannot function without well-informed citizens. Yet access to trustworthy, independent information is under enormous pressure. So if you have room in your grant portfolio, invest in independent media. This is a challenge we can only meet together.
EU institutions spent more than €1 billion for media- and journalism-related activities between 2014 and 2024, with €758.3 million classified as support-oriented funding. Annual funding nearly quintupled over the period, while funding remained concentrated among a relatively small group of organisations and countries.
The European Union is a significant source of funding for media and journalism. Through development cooperation, research programmes, culture and citizenship funding, and its own communication budgets, the EU supports independent media, press freedom, media literacy, journalism research, and a range of related activities. At a time when media organisations are facing growing economic pressure, understanding where this funding goes provides an important starting point for examining its role in the sustainability of independent media.
Tracing the Flows, a new study by the Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC), does exactly this: it maps EU funding connected to media and journalism between 2014 and 2024.
The study examines €1.0615 billion in beneficiary-level contracted amounts recorded in the EU Financial Transparency System (FTS). The underlying dataset contains 6,103 beneficiary entries naming 2,166 entities across 105 countries. “The data gives us a large amount of information: beneficiary, country, programme, responsible department, subject of the grant or contract, dates, and monetary values. It makes it possible to reconstruct a detailed picture of where contracted funding goes,” explains Flora Alfiero, a freelance journalist who co-authored the report.
The study focuses on the structure of the funding rather than its impact. It maps the scale and loop evolution of EU expenditure, its geographical distribution, the programmes and departments through which money flows, the organisations receiving it, and the different activities covered. It also makes an important distinction between funding intended to support media- and journalism-related activities and spending on communication and analytical services commissioned by EU institutions.
What the EU Funds
Of the €1.0615 billion recorded in the dataset, €758.3 million is classified as support-oriented funding, while €303.1 million relates to services procured for EU institutions. The latter includes communication campaigns, media buying, events, monitoring, research, and other commissioned work.
The distinction is not intended to suggest that one type of expenditure is more valuable than the other. Rather, it makes it possible to examine different funding functions separately. For researchers, policymakers, and media organisations, this provides a clearer picture of what the EU’s media-related funding actually consists of. The study records contracted amounts rather than money ultimately paid, so the figures may differ from final payments.
Procurement itself is divided into four mutually exclusive categories: advertising and media buying (€114.2 million), communication and events (€133.0 million), media monitoring, commissioned studies, and opinion research (€53.8 million), and IT services (€2.1 million). In total, 40 entities have records in both support-oriented and procurement categories.
The €758.3 million support-oriented figure offers a closer approximation of EU support for media- and journalism-related activity than the full dataset. It should not, however, be read as a measure of direct newsroom support, the study warns. The category also includes universities, research projects, audiovisual and film activity, media technology, and other media-related interventions.
A Steep Rise in Funding
The data shows a significant increase in funding over the period covered. Annual funding rose from €37.5 million in 2014 to €186.2 million in 2024. Growth was particularly substantial after 2021, with the annual total increasing by 66.9%. “The data shows the acceleration very clearly, but it does not allow us to establish a single causal explanation,” explains Alfiero. “The timing is certainly notable,” she continues. “The step-change occurs around 2022, and that is consistent with the expansion of EU commitments around strategic communication and independent media in the Eastern neighbourhood following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But our dataset alone cannot demonstrate that the invasion caused the increase.”
The figures capture the expansion of EU activity in areas including media development, journalism support, research, audiovisual production, information resilience, and strategic communication.
The geographical picture changes depending on which forms of expenditure are included. France, Belgium, and Germany together account for 51.8%, but when procurement is excluded, their combined share falls to 35.8%. This reflects, among other factors, the concentration of contractors, institutions, and consortium coordinators in major European administrative and media centres. “I expected some concentration, given the location of EU institutions, but the degree to which it has not shifted at all over time was interesting. The money grows substantially, the map does not move.” says Alfiero. She believes that “the structural advantage of proximity to EU institutions is still visible, and still largely uncorrected.”
One element of this structural advantage is that “organisations based in Brussels or with a Brussels presence know the procedural language, have established relationships with Commission officers, and are positioned to participate in grant cycles in ways that organisations elsewhere are not,” she adds.
Who Receives the Funding?
Funding flows primarily through external-action and research instruments. The size of individual awards varies considerably. The median positive-value record is €68,480 across the full dataset and €90,577 among support-oriented records. Many beneficiary allocations within multi-partner projects are relatively modest, while a small number of very large records push the average substantially above the median.
Grouping by beneficiary entity, the ten largest recipients in the full dataset hold 29.4% of the total. The largest is Havas (€101.0 million), a media-buying agency classified as procurement, followed by the European Endowment for Democracy (EED, €49.0 million) and Kantar (€26.6 million, media monitoring). The support-oriented top ten is composed of media-development organisations, press-freedom bodies, broadcasters, and universities: EED, the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ), International Media Support, BBC Media Action, Internews, and the European University Institute among them.
“These are legitimate actors, but they are not newsrooms. Investigative journalism units are largely absent,” Alfiero says, adding that “the EU funds the study of media, the support of media infrastructure, and the communication of its own institutions far more visibly than it funds the practice of accountability reporting. Our data can identify those patterns, but it cannot tell us whether a particular allocation was effective or whether it reached the places where it was most needed,” she adds.
From Funding Flows to Needs
The study does not assess individual grants, beneficiaries, or funding programmes, nor does it attempt to measure the impact of the activities financed. Its aim is more basic: to make a complex public record easier to understand, separate different forms of expenditure, and provide a transparent and reproducible baseline for further research into European funding for media and journalism.
“Our study maps where the money went; it does not measure the level of need in different countries or media markets,” Alfiero explains. She is cautious about producing a map of “funding” against “need,” but she believes there are important signals. “Journalist safety is a good example. The EU has passed resolutions, issued statements, and built political capital around press freedom as a value. The resources allocated specifically to protecting journalists who face threats, legal harassment, or physical danger are negligible by any measure,” she says. “Press freedom commitments sit inside external action programmes designed for third countries, research funding flows through Horizon with its own logic and eligibility criteria, and institutional communication budgets get recorded alongside genuine media support in the same transparency system,” she continues. “There is no single framework that treats the sustainability of independent journalism inside the Union as a policy objective.”
Alfiero also believes that direct, accessible funding for organisations “doing the actual work,” so local newsrooms, cross-border investigative units, outlets in markets where advertising has collapsed and public broadcasters have been captured, is still missing.
“The intermediary model where large NGOs and multilateral bodies distributing EU funds downstream is not inherently wrong, but it could add distance between the money and the journalism. And I think future discussion should move beyond simply asking how much money is being spent. We need to be able to follow the money into the actual activity: what kind of journalism is being supported, where it is being produced, who ultimately benefits, and what happens after the contract is awarded,” she concludes. “The next step is to connect this funding map with evidence about outcomes.”
Tim Göbel, CEO of the Schöpflin Foundation, reflects on 15 years of supporting journalism and the foundation’s shift from funding individual outlets to investing in infrastructure, pooled funds, and capacity building. He shares lessons on listening to the field and bringing more funders into journalism.
Why Journalism is Part of the Mission
How does supporting journalism fit into the Schöpflin Foundation’s broader mission?
We are a German foundation established by a family. We are a medium-sized organisation, and our main focus is supporting democracy. We advocate for a free, just, and tolerant society. We recognise that an informed public is the prerequisite for a democracy to function. In fact, I would argue that without a healthy media system, there can be no democracy. That’s why we started funding journalism almost 15 years ago.
Has your approach to supporting journalism changed over the years?
Yes, totally. It has been a journey. From the outset, our main focus has been on funding not-for-profit journalistic teams and media outlets. We have never funded individual journalists or scholarships. However, we have experimented extensively. We have funded national outlets, local and regional outlets, as well as outlets for certain target groups, such as newly arrived migrants in Germany. Over the years, we increasingly focused on infrastructure funding, supporting networks of organisations or associations in their early stages.
A major step was when we opened Publix in 2024. Publix is a house for journalism and the public sphere in Berlin. Its mission is to strengthen journalism and its essential informational and educational role in society. It does so by offering an excellent infrastructure for independent, not-for-profit media houses and freelance journalists, where they can work and collaborate. Equally important, it provides a space for exchange and dialogue – offering opportunities for high-level discussions and workshops on topics ranging from societal cohesion to AI in journalism.
In the same year, we co-started the Media Forward Fund alongside other foundations and impact investors. This pooled fund supports new business models in media in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and was inspired by the US-based Press Forward.
In a nutshell, we have shifted from funding single journalistic outlets to funding infrastructure and pooled funds.
What prompted this shift?
There were various impulses from the market. The idea for Publix was actually inspired by one of our grantees, who said alongside others, “Such infrastructure would be really needed.”
The Media Forward Fund also came about in response to a signal from the market. Until then, there were only around 10 journalism funders in Germany, for example, which is very few. The idea behind the fund was, on the one hand, to bring these together, on the other hand, also to attract new funders.
As many do, we realised, that it is often a tough step for new funders to start funding journalism, because they are afraid of accusations of interfering with editorial work or of reputational damage. With the fund structure that we set up in the Media Forward Fund, where there is a sort of “firewall” between the funders and the funding decisions, this fear can be alleviated.
In what other forms do you support journalism now, in addition to the Media Forward Fund and Publix?
We still have a few projects where we give grants to individual media outlets. For example, Correctiv, the leading not-for-profit investigative media outlet in the German-speaking world, has been a grantee of ours for a very long time.
What we have always done, and are still doing it, particularly within the Media Forward Fund, is supporting capacity building. We provide financial and non-financial support, organising network events where we offer a variety of organisational development activities.
Listening to the Field
What is the most important lesson you have learned from supporting journalism in these 15 years?
There are many lessons to be learned, but maybe the most important one is to listen to the journalists and those in the field, because they really know what is needed. It is a general lesson for philanthropy to listen more and speak less.
We also learned that journalism is undergoing such a significant transformation that it urgently requires new business models. In a sense, philanthropy can provide venture capital to support these new business models and transformations.
What were the biggest challenges you have had to face so far?
It is more of a challenge within the philanthropic community: to motivate other funders. We started from a very low level in Germany. It has taken years to find others, but the Media Forward Fund now has 25 funders pooling their money, for example.
This may not sound like much, but it is. It’s a significant step for Germany. So yes, finding other funders is definitely the biggest challenge.
How do you assess the success or impact of your programmes? Can you share a particular success story?
It goes without saying, but I still want to emphasise that we never interfere with editorial work. What interests us is the reach and variety of target groups that the outlets can build up, and their business models. Specifically, we are interested in how many people support these media outlets as small funders or through memberships. There are two cases that we are especially proud of.
One is Correctiv, as we were one of the early funders around 12 years ago. Nowadays, they are 80% self-sustaining. This is a huge success for the organisation. Today, they have around 200 staff members, and it has become a viable media company.
The other example is very special. A couple of weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, we co-founded the JX Fund, the Journalism in Exile Fund, together with two other organisations. It’s a small fund, but we are proud of it because it has quickly become very successful. We have a significant partnership with the German government to support exiled journalism, particularly from Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. This also demonstrates that foundations are there to help in an emergency situation – because they are more flexible and faster than state authorities for example.
Do you have any special advice for organisations that have not funded or supported journalism yet, but are thinking about doing so?
I would always say, Go for it! Don’t wait too long. Journalism and all its richness are prerequisites for democracy. It’s part of the information infrastructure that we need more than ever.
In fact, I would argue that every philanthropic organisation should probably allocate 1% or 2% of their budget to journalism and media as our information infrastructure. Because without them, we cannot do our work. It is something we all have to care about now and in the future.
Photo: Schöpflin Stiftung / Lucia Hofmaier
In Digital Journalism, Yael de Haan and Rijk van den Broek explore audiences’ experiences of local journalism. They find strong demand for accessible, meaningful reporting that provides deeper understanding and addresses everyday concerns.
Over the past two decades, local journalism in Western Europe has faced declining revenues, changing media habits, and growing competition from online platforms, raising concerns about local democracy. Yet debates often overlook how citizens themselves experience local news.
The authors examine how people define and consume local information, including professional outlets, hyperlocal and community sources. Based on 15 focus groups across eight Dutch municipalities, they explore what people expect from local news and how it shapes their communities.
They argue that a user-centred approach is needed to understand how people navigate this landscape. Beyond informing and holding authorities accountable, local journalism can strengthen social cohesion by connecting residents, institutions, and community life. They examine which sources people use for local information and how their experiences of local news relate to their sense of belonging and connection to their community.
The study finds that people navigate a broad and diverse local media environment rather than relying on a single source. Traditional outlets such as local newspapers, free weeklies, and broadcasters remain important, but citizens also depend heavily on municipal websites and newsletters, local Facebook and WhatsApp groups, and personal networks. This means people do not necessarily experience the decline of traditional outlets as a classic news desert. Instead, they encounter an abundance of information that can be fragmented, difficult to navigate, and hard to assess for relevance and reliability.
The study identifies three main functions that people expect local news to fulfil.
The information function is about practical, timely updates on events, construction, waste collection, road closures, and other changes affecting daily life. Municipal communication and social media often perform this role better than weekly newspapers because they provide faster updates.
The social function goes beyond reporting what has happened. People want local journalism to reflect community experiences, explain how residents feel about local issues, and help them understand the people and dynamics around them. Facebook and WhatsApp groups often fill this gap by providing a space for discussion, recognition and community connection, although participants remain aware that such information may be subjective or unreliable.
The third is the watchdog function. The respondents want local journalism to investigate important issues, explain why decisions are made, and follow developments over time, rather than simply report events. They often find local coverage too superficial and turn to social media for additional perspectives, even when those sources are speculative.
Overall, residents want local news that is timely and practical, socially meaningful, and capable of providing the deeper reporting needed to understand and scrutinize their communities.
The authors argue that news deserts should not be understood simply by counting local media outlets. A healthy local media environment depends on whether people can access relevant, useful, and meaningful information.
Using a citizen-centred approach, the study finds strong demand for local news, but also a fragmented information landscape, and a desire for deeper reporting that reflects community concerns. The authors call on journalists to build sustained relationships with audiences and see local journalism as part of a broader, changing media ecosystem.
de Haan, Y., & van den Broek, R. (2026). The Informed Citizen in Local Communities: A User-Centred Study on How the Public Values Local Journalism. Digital Journalism, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2026.2730312
For the King Baudouin Foundation, journalism is a core pillar for sustaining democratic pluralism. An Lavens, Head of the foundation’s Democracy Programme, explains how they support journalism while rethinking impact, risks, and the role of philanthropies.
Supporting Journalism and Democratic Participation
The King Baudouin Foundation has a long history of supporting democratic governance and civic participation. How does supporting journalism fit within your broader strategy?
Democracy ultimately depends on people being able to make sense of the world around them. Reliable, independent, and diverse public-interest information is one of the public goods that makes this possible. People can only participate meaningfully in society if they have access to trustworthy information, understand how it is produced, and feel able to form their own opinions. That is why we increasingly see journalism as part of something much broader than the media sector itself. It is part of the democratic infrastructure that allows open societies to function.
In our new Democracy Programme, we focus on two closely connected priorities: strengthening people’s democratic agency and strengthening the democratic information environment. Reliable information enables citizens to participate in democracy, but citizens also need the capacity to question, interpret, and use that information responsibly. The two reinforce one another.
This also explains why we do not see journalism as a sector that should be supported in isolation. A healthy democratic information environment depends on many interconnected elements: independent journalism, informed citizens, pluralistic public debate, and democratic institutions that remain open to scrutiny and dialogue.
At BELvue, our House of Democracy, we contribute by helping young people understand how information is produced, shared, and interpreted. Through activities such as Reporters of Democracy and Investigative Journalist for a Day, they experience what it means to ask questions, verify information, and engage with different perspectives. In that sense, we are not only investing in journalism, but also in the citizens who rely on it.
The same philosophy guides our support for journalism. Whether we invest in investigative journalism, media organisations or young journalists, the objective remains the same: not simply to strengthen journalism as a sector, but to strengthen one of the essential conditions that allows democracy itself to flourish. Ultimately, supporting journalism is not an end in itself. It is part of a broader ambition to ensure that democratic societies remain informed, open to dialogue, and capable of understanding themselves.
Do you work through intermediaries, or do you also fund organisations directly? Do you support individual journalists?
Because our objective is broader than supporting journalism alone, there is no single way of working. Different needs require different roles, and over the years, we have learned that philanthropy can contribute in several complementary ways.
Sometimes we work through specialised partners. Belgian Bridge, which we developed together with Journalismfund Europe, is a good example. Journalismfund brings the editorial expertise to organise the call, appoint an independent jury, and select the projects. This independence is essential because it fully protects editorial autonomy while allowing us to support high-quality public-interest journalism.
In other cases, our added value lies in governance. The National Lottery Democracy Fund is a good example. The National Lottery established the Fund within the King Baudouin Foundation because it wanted to pursue societal ambitions through an independent, transparent, and credible governance model. Our role is to organise the calls and provide that framework, while funding decisions are entrusted to an independent jury of external experts. I believe this is one of the important roles a philanthropic foundation can play: creating trust for partners, applicants, and society alike.
We also support organisations directly when that creates the greatest value. Through initiatives such as Pluralis and Civitates, we contribute to strengthening independent and pluralistic media over the long term, recognising that resilient organisations are just as important as individual projects.
Finally, we invest directly in people. The Prince Philip Fund’s Belgodyssee programme supports the next generation of journalists by giving journalism students practical newsroom experience across Belgium’s linguistic communities. Building on that philosophy, we also hope to launch the Stolarski Investigative Journalism Fellowship in 2027, helping early-career investigative journalists develop their skills, professional networks, and international experience.
Taken together, these different approaches reflect the way we think about philanthropy. Sometimes the greatest contribution is funding a project; sometimes it is strengthening an organisation, investing in people, or providing an independent governance framework. What matters is choosing the role that creates the greatest public value.
A Multi-Level Approach to Journalism Support
To what extent do you focus specifically on Belgium versus working internationally?
Growing up and working in Belgium inevitably shapes the way we think. We are used to living with different languages, different communities, and different perspectives. Perhaps that is one reason why pluralism feels less like an abstract principle and more like an everyday reality.
Some of our work is firmly rooted in Belgium. Through BELvue, the National Lottery Democracy Fund, Belgian Bridge, and our educational activities, we contribute to strengthening democratic life close to home.
At the same time, many of today’s challenges no longer stop at national borders. Disinformation, platform dynamics, artificial intelligence, and pressures on media freedom are shared European and global challenges. That is why we complement our Belgian work with initiatives such as Pluralis, Civitates, the AI & Society Fund, and Media Support Ukraine.
For me, there is no contradiction between working locally and internationally. They constantly reinforce one another. Experiences from elsewhere help us look differently at Belgium, just as Belgian experiences can contribute to wider European conversations.
Does being based in Belgium, the centre of European policymaking, influence how you think about supporting journalism?
Perhaps less because Brussels is the capital of Europe, and more because Belgium has always encouraged us to look beyond ourselves. As a relatively small country with several languages and strong international connections, we naturally think across borders. We rarely see democratic challenges as purely national. They are often shared, even if they take different forms depending on the context.
Belgium also reminds us every day that pluralism is something to be practised, not simply defended. Different perspectives coexist, sometimes comfortably and sometimes not, but always requiring dialogue, compromise, and a willingness to listen.
Being close to the European institutions is, of course, an additional advantage. Many debates around media freedom, digital regulation, and artificial intelligence take place almost on our doorstep, encouraging us to think simultaneously about Belgium, Europe, and the wider democratic landscape.
Supporting public-interest journalism has therefore never been an end in itself. It is about strengthening the conditions that allow democratic societies to remain informed, engage in a shared public conversation, and understand one another despite their differences.
What is the most important lesson you have learned from supporting journalism?
One thing that has always struck me is the curiosity of journalists. I studied communication rather than journalism, so entering this world made me realise how central curiosity is to the profession. Good journalists keep asking questions. They rarely settle for the first explanation. They look beneath the surface and try to understand what is really happening. Over time, I have come to think that curiosity is much more than a professional quality. It is a democratic one.
At BELvue, where we work with young people every day, we often say that democracy begins with asking questions. Before people can participate, they first need to understand. That means listening, questioning assumptions, encountering different perspectives, and sometimes changing your own mind.
In today’s information environment, where people are constantly exposed to enormous amounts of information, algorithms, and increasingly convincing AI-generated content, those qualities become even more important. Curiosity encourages people to look beyond headlines, compare sources, and remain open to complexity instead of searching for easy answers.
I also believe creativity deserves far more attention than it usually receives. Democracies need people who can imagine alternatives, connect different perspectives, and find new ways of explaining an increasingly complex world. Perhaps curiosity and creativity are two of the democratic capacities we should invest in most in the years ahead.
What were the biggest challenges you have had to face so far?
One observation that comes back quite often is that potential philanthropists hesitate when journalism enters the conversation. Some worry that supporting journalism may be perceived as taking a political position. I understand that hesitation. Yet, for me, the intention is almost the opposite.
Independent public-interest journalism is not about promoting one opinion over another. It is about ensuring that different voices can exist, that facts can be investigated, and that citizens have access to reliable information on which they can form their own opinions.
Ultimately, independent journalism is one of the institutions that helps democratic societies examine themselves, question themselves, and continue learning about themselves.
Perhaps this is one of those moments where philanthropy requires a certain amount of courage. Not the courage to defend a particular political view, but the courage to protect the conditions that allow democratic debate to remain open, informed, and pluralistic.
Another lesson is that there is rarely a single solution. The greatest needs differ from one country to another and from one community to another. That is why I increasingly believe philanthropy should begin by listening, rather than by deciding what it wants to fund. The first question should not be, “Which project do we want to support?,” but “Where are the greatest needs?”
Rethinking Impact and Success
How do you assess the success of your programmes? Can you share a particular success story?
Impact is probably one of the most difficult questions in philanthropy. We measure outputs such as grants, participants, and projects, but those numbers never tell the whole story. For me, the more interesting question is whether we have helped make the democratic information environment more resilient. Has a media organisation become stronger? Has a journalist developed professionally? Have citizens gained a better understanding of how information is produced? Those are often much more meaningful questions.
Occasionally, long-term investments become visible. In countries where media pluralism has come under pressure, organisations supported through initiatives such as Pluralis have demonstrated how important sustained investment in independent media can be. Research has even suggested that, in certain contexts, these long-term investments helped preserve pluralism during critical democratic moments.
I would be careful, though, not to define success only through these exceptional examples. Democracy is rarely strengthened by one flagship project. More often, it is the accumulation of many smaller contributions over many years. Perhaps that is one of the paradoxes of philanthropy: its greatest successes are often the least visible.
Sometimes success simply means that an independent newsroom survives, that a young journalist remains in the profession, or that citizens continue to have access to reliable and diverse public-interest information. Ultimately, philanthropy rarely changes society on its own. It creates the conditions that allow many others to make a difference.
Do you have any special advice for organisations that have not funded or supported journalism yet, but are thinking about doing so?
My first piece of advice would be to understand the landscape before deciding what to fund.
Rather than asking what kind of journalism you would like to support, I would first ask where the greatest needs are. The answer will almost certainly differ from one country to another.
Sometimes the priority may be investigative journalism. Elsewhere it may be local journalism, journalism education, young talent, public-interest technology, media literacy or helping existing organisations become financially sustainable through core funding.
There are many ways philanthropy can contribute, and they are usually complementary rather than competing. Sometimes the greatest impact comes from supporting organisations, sometimes from investing in people, sometimes from funding research, and sometimes simply from providing patient, long-term support.
I also believe responsibility does not lie only with philanthropy or with citizens. The media sector itself benefits from continuous reflection. Trust is not something journalism can simply ask for; it is something that is earned over time through independence, transparency, quality, and a willingness to keep listening to audiences. If there is one thing I hope we continue to protect, it is curiosity.
Journalists cultivate it every day, but it ultimately belongs to all of us. If philanthropy can help nurture that curiosity—in newsrooms, in classrooms, and across society—we are not only supporting journalism. We are helping strengthen one of the essential conditions for democracy itself.
In Journalism Practice, Emma Verhoeven and Sarah Van Leuven examined generative AI’s impact on journalism employment and found that rather than replacing journalists, it reshapes skills via reskilling and deskilling.
Generative AI is beginning to take over parts of journalistic work, from spotting stories to producing content, raising both hopes and anxieties about the future of the profession. This study looks at how it is changing work conditions and job security through interviews with key actors in newsrooms in Belgium. The broader picture is more complex than simple narratives of disruption, as long-standing economic pressures and newsroom practices also shape these changes.
In newsrooms, AI is settling into everyday workflows without overturning them. Large media groups have built dedicated teams and secure systems, weaving AI into content management tools that suggest headlines, summaries, or handle transcription and translation. Smaller outlets move more loosely, often relying on free tools, while a few draw firm ethical lines and restrict AI to research support. In general, automation remains limited in scope and tightly supervised, even if that supervision is uneven in practice.
The authors found that fears of widespread job loss have eased as AI’s limits have become clearer. Journalists mostly use it to offload repetitive work, which saves time but does not yet translate into measurable efficiency gains. Managers do not rule out small staffing adjustments over time, though not on a large scale. The more immediate pressure falls on freelancers, whose roles can be quietly reduced. Fully automated publishing exists only in narrow, data-driven areas like sports results or real estate listings, where structured inputs make automation feasible and where such coverage would otherwise not necessarily exist.
At the same time, AI is creating new roles and reshaping existing ones. News organisations are appointing editors with hybrid responsibilities, bridging editorial judgment and technological implementation. In some cases, journalists specialise in crafting prompts and refining how AI tools are used, a task framed less as technical work than as an extension of editorial thinking. These developments open new career paths but also deepen inequalities between large, well-resourced organisations and smaller outlets struggling to keep up.
Nevertheless, certain skills are losing ground. Routine language tasks, basic editing, and parts of distribution are increasingly automated, while expectations shift toward creativity, judgment, and adaptability. The picture that emerges is not one of sudden disruption but of gradual reorganization, shaped as much by long-standing economic pressures and newsroom hierarchies as by the technology itself.
Stepping back, the study suggests that generative AI is not transforming journalism as dramatically as often claimed. Its effects remain modest and uneven, more an extension of long-running digital shifts than a break with them. Direct job losses are rare, but change seeps in through hiring freezes and unfilled vacancies, quietly narrowing opportunities over time. Skills tied to judgment, verification, and human storytelling gain importance and journalists lean into this distinction, emphasising what machines cannot replicate.
The research also uncovered that old tensions persist. The promise of freeing up time for deeper reporting coexists with fears of cuts and heavier workloads, much as it did a decade ago. For some, especially freelancers and newcomers, the risks are sharper. Access to training and tools is uneven, competition intensifies, and entry-level pathways may shrink as basic tasks disappear. Newsrooms respond by pushing staff toward new skills or roles, though this adaptation depends heavily on resources.
Verhoeven, E., & Van Leuven, S. (2026). Between Anticipation and Impact: Assessing Generative AI’s Influence on Journalistic Labor and Employment. Journalism Practice, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2026.2692441
The provisions of the EU AI Act coming into effect in August may not change journalism overnight, but they will have a significant impact. The most consequential change relates to transparency: now it is a legal obligation.
On August 2, the EU AI Act reached a new milestone. The provisions entering into force and becoming fully enforceable in practice do not focus primarily on regulating AI use in journalism. Instead, they concentrate on disclosure, labelling, and enforcement: they introduce a regulatory layer into editorial decision-making, particularly in areas where the boundaries between human and machine input are difficult to draw.
Disclosure, Exceptions, and Editorial Responsibility
As Krisztina Rozgonyi, senior scientist at the Austrian Institute of Technology and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, explains, Article 50 includes important elements. The most important provision for journalism is the disclosure obligation: if texts published to inform audiences on matters of public interest are generated with AI, they must be labelled accordingly, with certain icons. There are, however, certain exceptions: the disclosure obligation becomes more flexible if the content serves artistic or satirical purposes, and there is no labelling requirement if the text undergoes substantial human review and is subject to editorial responsibility.
This means that routine applications, such as automated summaries, translation, or the use of generative tools in drafting, may fall within the scope of disclosure requirements, depending on the degree of human editorial control.
This threshold, however, remains open to interpretation: it is vague what constitutes ‘meaningful editorial control’. According to Rozgonyi, regular, professional editorial practices fall into this category, and another EU regulation, the European Media Freedom Act, defines what editorial control means. Accountability procedures must be defined, responsibilities must be clear on the individual level. This could influence workflows, she continues, and maybe editorial policies should be revised. In fact, in the case of smaller outlets, this might be the time when they have to put these editorial policies into written form.
Furthermore, according to Article 50, deepfake content, which resembles real persons or events and may reasonably be mistaken, must be labelled accordingly. Users must be informed if they interact with AI agents, for example, chatbots. The European Commission’s guidance elaborates on these requirements and their intended scope.
As Rozgonyi argues, news organisations also need to be mindful whether they qualify as providers or deployers of AI systems. In most cases, they are deployers, however, if they build their own AI systems, for example news assistants or chatbots, then they have to align with further regulations as providers.
From Regulation to Enforcement
August 2 marks the date at which enforcement mechanisms must be in place across member states. Regulatory bodies, penalties, and oversight structures move from design to implementation. For media organisations, this turns questions of AI use into matters of compliance. Decisions about disclosure are no longer confined to internal editorial guidelines but carry potential legal consequences.
The broader ecosystem is also affected. Rules governing general-purpose AI systems have been in force since 2025, requiring providers to document their models and meet transparency standards. As enforcement intensifies, these obligations become more visible in practice. Journalists gain access to additional information about how such systems are trained and operate, which may inform reporting on issues such as sourcing, bias, or intellectual property.
At the same time, media organisations remain largely dependent on external technology providers, while bearing responsibility for how these tools are deployed in editorial contexts. The Act does not fundamentally change this relationship, but it does bring greater attention to it.
Still, some of the most far-reaching elements of the AI Act are not part of this phase. Provisions concerning high-risk AI systems, including those relevant to employment or certain forms of automated decision-making, are largely deferred to later implementation stages. For journalism, this means that the immediate regulatory impact is concentrated on content and transparency, rather than on the internal use of AI in business or organisational processes. According to Rozgonyi, it is yet to be seen what kind of impact these provisions may have later.
The result is an uneven regulatory landscape. Editorial uses of AI are subject to new expectations, while other applications within media organisations remain, for now, less directly affected. Furthermore, Rozgonyi believes that the bigger focus should be placed on improving AI literacy of audiences.
There are, however, emerging areas of opportunity. The Act requires member states to establish regulatory sandboxes, designed to allow organisations to test AI systems under supervision. For media organisations, particularly those with the capacity to engage in experimentation, this may provide a structured environment to develop and refine AI-driven practices in dialogue with regulators.
Why This Matters for Funders
For funders and other stakeholders in the journalism ecosystem, these questions intersect with ongoing concerns about sustainability, credibility, and the capacity of news organisations to adapt to technological change. As previous waves of transformation have shown, the introduction of new tools rarely affects only production processes but also reshapes relationships between journalists, audiences, and the institutions that support them.
Supporting journalism in an AI-shaped environment is no longer only about financing content or institutions, but about enabling the conditions under which trust can be maintained. That includes investment in editorial standards, disclosure practices, and technical literacy within newsrooms, as well as independent scrutiny of the tools those newsrooms rely on. Without that layer of support, the burden of compliance and transparency risks falling unevenly across the sector, deepening existing gaps between well-resourced organisations and those already struggling to stay afloat. In this sense, funding decisions begin to influence not just what journalism is produced, but how accountable, legible, and resilient it remains as AI becomes embedded in its core processes.
AI is already embedded in many aspects of journalism. What the Act does is bring greater structure to its use, particularly where that use intersects with public trust. In the coming years, the practical significance of these provisions will depend on how they are interpreted and applied. Much will be determined not only by regulators, but by the choices made within newsrooms and across the broader media ecosystem.
In a research article in Journalism Studies, Jacob L. Nelson and Seth C. Lewis argue that transparency alone cannot rebuild trust; news organisations must adopt capital transparency, which includes openly addressing profit motives and acknowledging tensions between financial interests and public service.
Trust in journalism has declined sharply worldwide, making it harder for people to stay informed and for news organisations to sustain themselves. In response, audiences increasingly turn to their own forms of “fact-checking,” often reinforcing existing beliefs and deepening exposure to misinformation. While transparency in reporting processes has been promoted as a remedy, its impact remains limited because it does not address a central concern: the perception that journalism is driven more by profit than public interest.
Public attitudes range from healthy scepticism, which encourages critical engagement, to corrosive cynicism, which dismisses journalism altogether. This shift towards cynicism is fuelled by beliefs that journalists are influenced by political bias and, increasingly, by economic pressures. Many people suspect that news is shaped to attract attention and generate revenue, a concern not entirely unfounded given the growing entanglement of editorial and commercial priorities.
Although distrust is influenced by broader social and psychological factors, perceptions of journalists’ competing interests play a significant role. Rebuilding trust therefore requires acknowledging these tensions openly and demonstrating that professional integrity can coexist with financial realities, rather than denying the pressures that shape news production.
The idea that greater transparency can restore trust in journalism has gained wide support, especially as news organisations face growing scepticism and accusations of bias or “fake news.” Transparency typically involves explaining how stories are selected, how reporting decisions are made, how journalists interact with audiences, and how errors are corrected. The underlying belief is that by opening up these processes, news organisations can demonstrate accountability and reinforce their credibility. Many outlets have embraced this approach, publishing explanations of their reporting methods and editorial guidelines to rebuild their relationship with the public.
However, research has consistently shown that these efforts have had little or no meaningful effect on public trust. In some cases, transparency produces only modest improvements, and in others it can even deepen scepticism. Several explanations help account for this. Audiences may simply not encounter transparency efforts, particularly as news consumption shifts to social media, where such explanations are less visible. Furthermore, those who already distrust journalism may dismiss transparency as self-serving or insincere. There is also the risk that transparency is used strategically, revealing only favourable aspects of journalistic practice while concealing more problematic elements, which can make it resemble a form of promotion rather than genuine openness.
A more fundamental limitation is that current transparency efforts focus almost entirely on how journalism is produced, while neglecting a key source of distrust: the perception that news organisations prioritise profit over truth or public service. This is where the concept of capital transparency becomes central.
Capital transparency calls for openness about the financial structures underpinning journalism, including ownership, funding sources, and the economic pressures shaping editorial decisions. By revealing how money influences news production, journalists can address suspicions that otherwise are left unchallenged.
This approach goes beyond routine disclosures, encouraging journalists and organisations to explain how they maintain independence despite financial constraints and potential conflicts of interest. It may involve acknowledging the limits of the traditional “firewall” between editorial and business operations and being open about instances where that boundary is strained.
While such honesty could expose uncomfortable realities and may not improve trust in the industry as a whole, it has the potential to build credibility at the level of journalists, distinguish genuinely public-serving outlets from those driven primarily by profit, and consequently, improve public trust in public interest journalism.
Nelson, J. L., & Lewis, S. C. (2026). Show Them the Money: The Case for Capital Transparency in Journalism. Journalism Studies, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2026.2655667
In a study in Journalism and Media, Najm A. Kh. Alhatimi Aleessawi, Rahima Aissani, Jumana Mohammad Ali Moh’d Rsheidat and Mohammed Habes compare media consumption and communication preferences across generations. They found that Gen X favours news sites, Y social media and websites, while Gen Z prioritizes social media and multimedia.
Rapid shifts in information and communication technologies have significantly reshaped how people communicate and consume media, turning communication into a multi-directional, interactive process within digital environments. These changes have led to diverse media behaviours across age groups. However, existing research has mostly focused on single platforms or single age groups, often using quantitative approaches that measure usage rates rather than exploring motivations and interaction patterns. This leaves a gap in understanding how and why different generations engage with media in distinct ways.
Generational categories are used as a framework to interpret differences in values and behaviours shaped by shared social, economic, and technological experiences. Generations X, Y, and Z are distinguished by their varying relationships with technology, from gradual adaptation to digital tools in older cohorts to lifelong immersion in digital environments among younger groups. Generation X tends to combine traditional and digital media use, Millennials (Gen Y) grew up with early internet technologies and use a blend of digital communication in various aspects of life, while Gen Z is highly skilled in digital environments and relies heavily on social media. A younger age group is also emerging, but it is not included in this analysis.
The authors used a qualitative design to explore lived experiences through focus group discussions involving participants from the three generations. They analysed the data using thematic analysis, allowing patterns in communication preferences, media consumption, and interaction styles to be identified and compared across groups. Reliability was strengthened through independent coding, triangulation, member checking, and reflexive practices to minimise bias and enhance trustworthiness.
The findings show distinct generational patterns in media use, content preferences, and communication styles. Across all three generations, websites and social media are central sources of news and information, although their relative importance differs. Gen X relies most on online news sites, with social media and television also playing a role, reflecting a blend of traditional and digital habits. Gen Y places strong emphasis on social media alongside websites, valuing speed, accessibility, and reliability, while still engaging with television and other formats. Gen Z shows the strongest dependence on social media, using it as the primary gateway to news, followed by websites, with traditional media such as television and newspapers playing only a secondary role. This reflects a broader shift towards fast, mobile, and visually engaging platforms, while some trust in traditional media remains for credibility.
In terms of content, political issues are consistently important across all groups, but other interests vary. Gen X demonstrates a broad focus that includes social and cultural themes alongside politics, as well as occasional interest in science and technology. Gen Y combines political and social concerns with cultural and sports interests, often linking political topics to their broader social impact. Gen Z also prioritises politics and sports but shows stronger engagement with entertainment, culture, and technological developments, reflecting the influence of digital platforms and fast-paced media consumption habits.
Communication preferences also differ but they share some common ground. Text messaging is widely used across all generations, particularly among Gen X and Y, who also value face-to-face interaction. Gen Z shows greater diversity in preferred communication forms, with strong use of voice calls, text messaging, voice messages, and video calls, while face-to-face communication is less dominant.
Overall, these patterns highlight how differing technological environments and social experiences shape how each generation communicates and consumes media, reinforcing the idea that media preferences evolve alongside technological change and user needs.
Aleessawi, N. A. K. A., Aissani, R., Rsheidat, J. M. A. M., & Habes, M. (2026). Communication Preferences of Generations X, Y, and Z in Receiving Media Content. Journalism and Media, 7(2), 81. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia7020081
Collaboration is a strategy for survival, and it would require greater coordination efforts from journalism funders, Florence Wild, Chief Development Officer at CORRECTIV argues.
My first meeting at this year’s International Journalism Festival in Perugia really struck a chord. It was an encounter with the leadership team of Sinatle Media, an initiative of 22 independent media outlets from Georgia that formed shortly after the government introduced a new set of restrictive foreign agent and grant laws which effectively cut off independent media from any kind of international funding.
I was deeply impressed with the group of young women’s resolve to defy the government’s increasingly authoritarian tactics, and with the network of solidarity they had built among the group of media outlets. You see, media organisations and journalists can be quite finicky when it comes to cooperation – in diplomatic terms, I’d say our sector runs on friendly competition, in the best of times. Yet we are most decidedly not in the best of times. Still, Georgian media were not only collectively fundraising, but the Tbilisi-based outlets were also forfeiting their shares so that their colleagues from more rural parts of the country could keep the lights on.
It’s a beautiful and moving example of deep collaboration in a situation that feels impossible. Teo Kavtaradze, one of Sinatle Media’s co-founders, later re-shared the story at a workshop on unconventional approaches to collaboration that I co-hosted together with Rozina Breen, Director of Editorial Programs at the Pulitzer Center. All of us were picking up on the same need and the same trend: that collaboration in this day and age is not a nice to have, it’s a strategy for survival.
Collaboration as Infrastructure
The term “collaboration” is of course rather vague, capturing any kind of instance in which two organisations or organisational units align themselves to achieve a common goal. This can take place anywhere between the project-based short term to more permanent forms of working together.
Journalism funders have played a big part in advocating for more collaboration in the sector – for example by enabling cross-border investigations and cross-sectoral initiatives, bridging journalism, academia, and the arts. This has no doubt helped to bring the sector closer together. Building trust is the first stepping stone from one-off projects towards deeper and more catalytic ways of collaborating that can lead to sector-wide renewal. My prediction: Amidst shrinking spaces and resources, we’ll start seeing a lot more of the more structural and permanent forms of collaboration, including mergers.
Exactly two years ago, one of the most exciting examples of deep collaboration, the Journalism Cloud Alliance, was officially launched at the International Journalism Festival with the ambitious goal of building a community-owned cloud infrastructure. Led by the Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the Alliance now consists of 37 members spread across all six continents (disclaimer: this includes CORRECTIV) as well as 17 partners from academia, philanthropy and technology.
It stands out to me because the focus so clearly is to build a shared infrastructure for independent journalism at a time where Big Tech companies have turned increasingly and outwardly hostile towards fact-based discourse and the idea that information as a public good is worth safeguarding. The JCA is an investment into the health of the information ecosystem and the underlying infrastructure that all organisations whose mission is to provide information in the public interest depend on. Philanthropic funding has kick-started this endeavour which would not have been possible under normal market conditions.
Collaboration as Leverage
Another interesting field of collaboration next to shared services and infrastructure is collective bargaining and advocacy. The Danish Press Publications Collective Management Organisation (DPCMO) which accounts for 99% of the Danish news media landscape, for instance successfully negotiated a collective licensing agreement with Google in 2023. As of 2026, DPCMO is taking OpenAI to court over compliance issues with Danish copyright law, transparency and fair compensation over the use of protected works.
Initiatives similar to DPCMO have emerged in other countries in recent years, some of which to date have stalled precisely due to lack of funding. While the Danish example is primarily financed by membership fees, philanthropy could play a key role in supporting initiatives in other markets, including covering costs for setting up governance structures, legal consultation, and convening members.
I’d actually heard about the DPCMO example at a side event in Perugia on Big Tech reporting organised by Agência Pública, CLIP (Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodistica), Lighthouse Reports, and Democracy for Sale. Part of the afternoon showcased the reporting from the cross-border investigative project “The Invisible Hand of Big Tech” which brings together 18 media organisations from 13 countries, led by Agência Pública and CLIP.
In terms of methodology, cross-border investigations and investigative networks are of course not new (this makes any successful collaborative investigation no less impressive, there absolutely is an artistry behind it). But for the purpose of this article, the Invisible Hand project stands out in particular because it dares ask some uncomfortable questions to journalists, media outlets, and media support organisations that have in the past benefitted from the once highly lucrative and sought-after funding from Big Tech companies. Beyond the powerful reporting it produces, the project provides a space for self-reflection and reaches out another “invisible hand” to investigative journalists and media organisations around the world, inviting them to collaborate in defence of democracy under attack.
The Role of Journalism Funders
This year’s International Journalism Festival left me feeling energised, despite the abundance of challenges and outright attacks our sector is facing. There’s an incredible appetite for creativity to build on, a willingness to learn from one another, and a moral conviction to serve communities even more deeply through these times of turmoil. Collaboration comes into frame not merely as a prerequisite for funding but an existential necessity – whether the aim is to pool and distribute resources, build shared infrastructure, collectively advocate for better regulatory frameworks, grow editorial capacity, or to better reach and serve audiences.
Given the complexity of the task at hand, this would require greater coordination efforts on the part of journalism funders themselves. After all, if we are serious about journalism as a public good, the focus should not solely be on the ability (or inability) of single media organisations to survive. Our conversation as a sector should also include an angle on ecosystem health and the connective tissue between media organisations.
As we enter a new era of collaboration for journalists and media organisations, it is important for journalism funders to reflect on how they can create an enabling environment that feels supportive rather than prescriptive. As outlined, collaboration can and must take on different forms beyond a project-based logic if we are to make any real advances on the underlying systemic issues. One of the participants of our workshop put it best when she stated: “The risk of not collaborating feels much higher to me now than the risk of not moving at all.”