The Transformative Media Partnership Project

 The Transformative Media Partnership project aims to promote better-informed demand on the part of crisis-affected and at-risk low- and middle-income countries. The Centre is launching a tenmonth journalistic fellowship project to support a cohort of storytellers (with a potential to both extend and scale the programme).

The support from the Transformative Media Partnership will consist of individual grants for journalism and training (provided by the Centre).

The partnership aspires to be transformative and shift power by starting to disrupt the status quo in at least two ways:

• Transform the story that treats disasters as surprises and where narratives represent narrow views, Western bias, or are framed in the interests of those holding power (e.g. Granger, 2021; Pointer & Matsiko, 2022)
• Speak truth to power by holding national, regional, and/or international actors and/or the global crisis finance system to account for decision making, promoting the voices and interests of those most at risk or vulnerable to the impact of disasters.

Scope of Work

 The Centre is looking for a partner organisation or a small consortium of organisations (‘Partner’ from now on) to help design the project and disburse the grants.

The programme will award grants to practicing or emerging journalists focusing on any low- or middle-income country or a small island state, although the Partner is welcome to propose a regional focus. The grants are not restricted to a type of journalism, and the journalists should have complete editorial independence in producing stories, including written, video, audio, data journalism, and photographic entries.

The bidder for this partnership should propose an approach to impact to ensure the grants lead to the publication of work. It could mean that the journalist grant applicants provide a letter of endorsement from a publisher or a media organisation indicating an intention to publish the complete work. It could also entail applicants submitting samples of previous relevant work, and the Centre and the Partner will broker media relationships and support with the publication.

It is welcome a broad range of topics focusing on past disasters or preparedness and planning for future disasters, or engagement on the issues related to humanitarian, development, and climate finance, or relevant institutional reform. It is expected the journalists to have some experience in covering development, humanitarian, or climate issues as these relate to disaster preparedness. It is welcome different cross-cutting and intersectional perspectives on topics (e.g., through a gender or conflict lens).

The Partner would be expected to disburse the grants to the selected journalists.