Who, what, when, where and why

Meet our first FWD:media winners

Over the last few weeks we have been eagerly reading through applications from organisations from all over the world that have applied to our FWD:media initiative. We are proud to announce that we have not only one but *four* winners of the first round of FWD:media. We can’t wait to work with this first cohort and hope that you will find their projects as exciting as we do.

In the coming week, we will set them up with Live Blog and give them some training on how to start up live coverage for their project. You can expect to see the first live blogs in May.

The winners

CTXT.es

CTXT.es (Contexto) was founded in 2014 by 14 experienced journalists from major newspapers in Europe, such as El Mundo, El Pais, and La Repubblica. When they launched, they were looking for an open source solution and they chose Newscoop. In 2016, while looking at ways to cover live sports and politics they decided to apply to FWD:media.

Miguel Mora - the editor in chief - has over 22 years of experience as a correspondent. He and his colleagues started up Ctxt.es in an effort to make journalism free from the interests of politicians, editors and business. Over the past years, CTXT.es has grown to become an alternative slow journalism news outlet in Spain, using longforms and new forms of storytelling.

Always on the lookout for innovative journalistic tactics, CTXT is turning to to add liveblogging to their already varied portfolio of tools (have a look at their beautiful latest Storyteller longform on the children of Chernobyl). “We are a weekly publication that is in need of methods to increase our audience, influence and revenue,” says Miguel. “Live Blog is the tool we need to be more in daily contact with our readers.”

Northernews Wire - Uganda

Northernnews Wire was established in October 2014 by freelance journalist Pat Robert Larubi and a group of colleagues to offer the people of Northern Uganda a voice. Northernews Wire is an independent, non-governmental premium online news agency. The region of Northern Uganda is in a steady post-conflict recovery process following the 20 years Lord’s Resistance Army insurgency which has caused tens of thousands of casualties and displaced more than a million people.

With Live Blog, Northernews Wire wants to tap onto the power of new media to help the underserved, vulnerable and low income communities create and produce content that realistically represents their daily life struggles in a new concept that is currently absent in traditional media.

“Embracing the power of digital online news by partnering withis a plus in our operation in trying to address the critical lack of information and need for accurate representation of the region in the media,” explains Pat. “We want to use Live Blog for field work and coverage of live events, especially those focusing on human rights related issues, health, education and natural resource governance.”

“The world is on the path to technological advancement,” continues Pat, “as Northernews Wire we are excited to be chosen among the top four to take on this mantle of using this advanced technology in trying to give our people and above all the region a face. The fact that the tough idea and responsibility to make this project a reality has been given to us FREE of charge by the team is reason enough for us to keep smiling.”

Radio Bullets

Radio Bullets was born from the passion of two journalists, Barbara Schiavulli and Alessia Cerantola. Barbara is a war reporter and Alessia an expert in the Far East. Both aware of the lack of quality reporting on foreign affairs in Italian media, that prefer to focus on national issues. In 2014 they decided to launch a series of podcasts on world news. What started as a 10-15 minute daily morning bulletin grew in the course of 2015 to comprise 20 reporters from Africa to Latin America to Asia, producing thematic podcasts covering topics spanning from archeology to psychology, books and art.

“Because our project is still relatively new,” says Barbara, “we still have to penetrate the market. We try to combine professional journalism with new technologies. Having Live Blog is a new way to be in touch with our followers and promote our work reporting international news.”

With Live Blog, the journalists of Radio Bullets may have found another way to cover the news of the world and work together.

CullmanSense

CullmanSense is a community media publication from Cullman, Alabama. CullmanSense was launched on Dec. 31, 2010 as a daily e-publication and quickly grew into Cullman's only Monday print publication in less than one year. They have a motto: “first get it right, then get it first" and liveblogging will enable them to break the news as it happens.

Dustin Isom takes care of the IT department at CullmanSense. “We applied for FWD:media,” Dustin explains, “because we saw it as an opportunity to shape the future of social storytelling. Primarily we plan to use Live Blog to crowdsource information during breaking news events and utilize its real-time aggregation capabilities to offer our users a curated hub of verified social information. Secondly, we would like to explore using it to involve our audience in music festivals and other types of entertainment and events.”

It’s an exciting time for CullmanSense: in April 2016, in the middle of theapplication process, CullmanSense acquired The Cullman Tribune, Alabama’s oldest continuously published weekly newspaper. Now, CullmanSense is the online presence of The Cullman Tribune, which is also printed weekly. We’re looking forward to seeing how they will shape Live Blog to their use!

Want to add live coverage to your website? Sourcefabric is supporting independent reporting and journalism projects with the FWD:media initiative. If you would like to work with Live Blog, head to the website for more details and to check if you meet all the criteria. We can’t wait to hear about your projects too! Round two will be open for applications in May 2016.