Idea of research grants gaining ground

Belgium

€ 250.000 per year to give research grants to journalists in the frenchspeaking community of Belgium – that’s “the good news of the year”, as the monthly of the french-Belgian journalist union put it.

The government of the frenchspeaking community in Belgium (about 40 percent of the population) on May 27th assigned the amount to the Assocationa des Journalistes Professionels, who will establish an independent jury for the distribution of the grants, according to its press release  of May 27th. The journalist's union refers to the existing independent funds, the Pascal Decroos Fund in the Dutchspeaking part of Belgium and the Fund for Special Journalism in the Netherlands, who have practised the model of individual grants for quality journalism for 10 and 19 years respectively.

But not only in Belgium the idea of research grants to further investigative journalism gains ground. In Denmark two journalists currently are working on a similar initiative.

Denmark

“We have the promise of one million Danish crowns,” says award-winning film-maker Miki Mistrati, co-founder of the film-company Bastard Film, who along with journalist Mads Bruun Pedersen is working on establishing a new fund to give research grants to individual journalists and small teams.

“The past 4-5 years the conditions for investigative journalists have worsened,” says Mistrati to Journalismfund.eu. During a visit to New York he was inspired by the Pro Publica model of alternative funding for investigative journalism, and decided to develop a model suitable for his home-country.

The idea is, that the new fund shall support particularly the early phases of investigative stories, it is then expected, that when tv-companies buy into the story with production money, the preliminary investment money can be returned to the fund. However for print journalists such a model is hardly viable, so some money will be granted without a pay-back clause.

“It’s funding for the basic research, we are lacking today,” says Mistrati, who also mentions the “irritation” about a far too low general journalistic quality.
According to Mistrati a not-yet named media company has promised to support the fund with one million Danish crowns (about € 130.000). Mistrati is currently contacting private companies and other for further support, and he hopes to get the fund off the ground in the autumn of 2009.

European Union

On European level a new attempt is made to establish support for research journalism in Europe. Two members of the European parliament, Danish liberal Anne E. Jensen and German green Helga Trüpel, suggest a € 3 million fund to support cross-border research journalism, according to Danish journalist's union magazine Journalisten.

To the magazin of the Danish journalists union Anne E. Jensen states , that she considers such a grant a great chance – not least also to get more apropriate European coverage, where journalists far too often do not document cross-border problems. Jensen, a former editor-in-chief at Danish daily Berlingske Tidende considers cross-border research necessary: “As a politician I actually need this type of public sphere in the EU.”

This recent attempt is not the first of it’s kind. Previously a similar attempt was made by Belgian socialdemocrat Mia de Vits  and Belgian conservative Ivo Belet, a former journalist and editor at Flemish TV VRT.

Their work was successful and a fund for cross-border research grants was introduced in the EU budget for 2007, however during budget negotiations the idea was dismissed that year.

Written by Brigitte Alfter