Our first Community Event in Athens with iMEdD

The European Press Prize family will come together again, this year, after having met at the Prize Award Ceremony in Madrid. On October 9, we will launch our first Community Event, organised together with, and hosted by, our member iMEdD – Incubator for Media Education and Development. The event will mark the final day of iMEdD’s 5-Day Forum “International Journalism Week: A Matter of Trust.”

The aim of this event is to bring together all our stakeholders, for a day of discussions and networking moments that will revolve around one single, important topic: European journalism.

An ever-expanding journalists Community

The size of the European Press Prize Community naturally increases with every new Award season. From the hundreds of submissions we receive per year, 20 projects are shortlisted for the different categories of the Prize.

As the Prize was born 10 years ago, this brings the count of Laureates to around 200 teams, often composed of many journalists.

To the count of the participants, board members, Judges, PrepCom, and partners need to be added. This means that the European Press Prize Community now includes a large wealth of professionals from everywhere in Europe and beyond.

Harnessing the power of the Community

With all the different backgrounds and the knowledge that comes with them, the Prize Community can be a powerful source of ideas that can have an impact both within the Community and outside of it.

At the Community Event, our Laureates and other Community members will have a chance to meet and talk about their current projects, and what could be done next. They will design future collaborations together, network, and share knowledge, ultimately continuing to cultivate excellence in European journalism.

The impact of the Community Event will extend beyond the limits of the European Press Prize Community, because the ideas and projects that will be born in Athens will be developed in different European countries and then made available to different audiences.

The first Community Event

The Community Event will hopefully become a recurring event, coming to play an essential role in the growth of the European Press Prize and its partners.

This first edition is made possible by our member iMEdD, which will host us during the International Journalism Week.

Anna-Kynthia Bousdoukou, iMEdD Managing Director, Journalist: “We strongly believe collaboration is the only way forward to everything, not least overcoming the Matter of Trust journalism is experiencing. In this vein, we are proud to host the first-ever European Press Prize Community Event, a coming together of professionals sharing common values and telling stories that can create real impact.”

While the first part of the Community Event’s programme will only be dedicated to our invitees, the second part will be open to all International Journalism Week’s participants. The collaborative spirit of the event and of our Community will also be reflected in the plan of the day, as the participants will be given a chance to substantiate part of the programme.

We are fundraising for a new Award Category: the Migration Journalism Award

We are happy to announce that we started fundraising for the creation of a new Award category: the Migration Journalism Award. The announcement was made during a joint press conference, in Madrid, with the Spanish foundation porCausa.

We will also participate, together with porCausa, in the fifth edition of the Mérida Congress, the only international conference on migration journalism, from 5 to 7 October 2022 in Mérida.

Migration journalism: a big current within the European Press Prize

One of the topics most present in the hundreds of submissions that the European Press Prize receives every year is migration, in all its shapes, forms and declinations.

The presence of a high number of works related to this topic didn’t go unnoticed, as both the Panel of Judges and the Preparatory Committee of the Prize have awarded, since 2015, several items related to migration. The latest examples of this are, in 2019, Fifty-six days of separation – a breathtaking report on the U.S.’ Migration Policy and its consequences – and, in 2021 and 2022, several projects that could fall under a new category that specifically awards migration journalism.

Moreover, the director of porCausa Lucila Rodríguez-Alarcón has been part of the Prize’s Preparatory Committee for three years, giving her contribution to the selection process that highlighted the presence of so many articles and projects related to the connections between different countries, and the movement of people, and therefore stories, across them.

The Prize Contracts and Partner Lead, Jennifer Athanasiou-Prins: “Migration is part of our organisation, in every facet of it. We cannot ignore the influence of migration on European journalism – and therefore the importance of migration journalism. We are proud to join forces with both Fundacíon porCausa and the International Congress on Migration Journalism in Mérida to unite our communities to strengthen European migration journalism.”

Participating in the Mérida Congress

The Mérida Congress is the only event dedicated exclusively to migration journalism, and it is held every year in the Spanish city of Mérida.

This year’s edition, the fifth, will last one day longer and host almost 200 journalists from everywhere in the world. The 2022 program counts more than 14 roundtables, to discuss the most diverse topics, from the coverage of displacement in Ukraine, and the role of fixers in the field, to gender narrative in the migratory processes and storytelling on migrant children.

Five of the European Press Prize laureates, specialized in migration journalism, will be selected and will participate in some of the roundtable discussions, to give their contributions to the discussion.

A partnership between the European Press Prize and porCausa, and the participation in the Mérida Congress, came naturally, given the mission of the Prize and the attention the organization wants to dedicate to the topic of migration.

Lucila Rodriguez- Alarcón, director of porCausa: “Two of the most important networks of migration and journalism are now united, providing the European landscape with the only migration journalism congress in the world. We couldn’t be more happy and confident about this collaboration.”