Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is accepting applications for the Without Borders Media Fellowship for South Asia, open to journalists, photographers, and freelancers in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, India, Maldives, and Pakistan. The fellowship aims to encourage cross-border and hyper-local reporting in South Asian countries on issues related to public health and humanitarian aid. The program includes mentorship, training, access to MSF projects and experts and field reporting costs. The application deadline is June 5.
Source: MSF
Less than one month remains for audio and video journalists to submit entries for the 2023 DIG Awards. The annual ceremony, which will be held later this year in Modena, Italy, from September 21-24, celebrates the best in audio and video investigations from around the world. Work will be judged in one audio category and five different video categories: Investigative Long, Investigative Medium, Reportage Long, Reportage Medium, and Shorts. The final deadline for submission is June 15, 2023.
Source: DIG Awards
An unspecified cyberattack wreaked havoc at a US newspaper over the past weekend, preventing it from publishing its Sunday print edition. Just days before the city's mayoral primary elections, the Philadelphia Inquirer was hit with an online attack that severely disrupted its internal operations. In addition to halting daily newspaper production, the incident resulted in fewer news updates on the newspaper's website and prompted managers to bar staff from working in the newsroom out of security concerns. Despite the missed Sunday paper, the Inquirer was able to publish a print edition on Monday and restored normal online coverage for the city's elections on Tuesday. “We appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding as we work to fully restore systems and complete this investigation as soon as possible,” said Inquirer's publisher Lisa Hughes, who also noted she had contacted the FBI about the attack. “We will keep our employees and readers informed as we learn more.”
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
On Monday the Guatemalan newspaper elPeriodico shut down operations, 10 months after its founder, Jose Zamora, was arrested as part of a crackdown on opposition officials, prosecutors, judges, human rights activists, and journalists. Based in Guatemala City, ElPeriodico was renowned for its investigations revealing cases of government corruption, and was critical of President Alejandro Giammattei’s administration. Following Zamora’s arrest for alleged money laundering and influence peddling — which the Guatemalan Association of Journalists and human rights activists have called a politically motivated campaign — the paper laid off 80% of its staff and went digital-only. Zamora is currently on trial, and nine other journalists and columnists from El Periódico are under investigation for alleged obstruction of justice.
Source: Reuters
The US Supreme Court ruled against Puerto Rico's Center for Investigative Journalism (CPI) in a right-to-information case. In a 8-1 decision, the nation's highest court decided that the island territory's Fiscal Control Board did enjoy "sovereign immunity" from public records laws and did not have to provide CPI access to documents about its activities. CPI sued the Board in 2017 and had won in both US district and appellate courts before the Supreme Court rejected its case this week, ruling that Congress, which appointed the Board, had not explicitly revoked its immunity from transparency laws. "We reject in the most forceful way possible that the federal Supreme Court has made a decision that tramples on the rights of Puerto Ricans," CPI's executive director Carla Minet said in a statement. "We are facing yet another chapter of the colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States, this time, with the result of hindering government transparency and accountability in our country."
Source: Puerto Rico Center for Investigative Journalism
The Pulitzer Prizes for 2023 have been revealed. The winners include The New York Times which took the international reporting award for "unflinching coverage" of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including an eight-month investigation into Ukrainian deaths in the town of Bucha. The investigative reporting prize was awarded to Wall Street Journal staff who dug into financial conflicts of interest among federal officials. Other winners include Caitlin Dickerson of The Atlantic, whose work uncovered the impact of a US migration policy that forcefully separated migrant children from their parents, and who won the explanatory reporting prize, and the investigative journalist Anna Wolfe of Mississippi Today, whose reporting revealed "how a former Mississippi governor used his office to steer millions of state welfare dollars to benefit his family and friends,” who won in the local reporting category. The prize for audio reporting went to a podcast that investigated the abuse of Indigenous children at an Indian residential school in Canada, by Gimlet media.
Source: The Pulitzer Prizes
