Over the last ten years, a wave of innovative new approaches to producing public interest journalism has swept across Europe. This has been crucial to address the decline of traditional media, and the rise of misinformation, increasingly divisive debates, and the problems these have had on democracy. But there are still too few of these newsrooms, and significant challenges for their sustainability.
To address this, 25 independent European newsrooms joined forces and founded Reference, a network where we collaborate to work on common challenges, and share knowledge and practices to build our collective sustainability.
To share these insights beyond the network, we are now interviewing each member of Reference in our new podcast series: The Loop, created by independent newsrooms Fumaça and Átlátszó Erdély. In this series we will explore challenges and successes for members of Reference, with each episode will focus on a different key topic for independent media, delving into real-life practices and experiences through in-depth interviews.
This is part of the Journalism Value Project, where we are investigating the state of independent media in Europe, and exploring what independent media needs to thrive.
Episode 1 is out now! Listen to it below, or on journalismvalueproject.com or search “journalism value loop” on your favourite streaming platform.
Episode 1: Zoltán Sipos, founder and editor-in-chief of Átlátszó Erdély on jumping the fence and breaking the progressive bubble