Latin American News Outlets Receive Funding, Mentorship to Accelerate Digital Transformation in COVID-19 Era

By: ICFJ | 06/30/2020

Forty-four news organizations from 12 countries across Latin America have been selected to receive grants and expert mentorship as part of a new $2 million program from the Facebook Journalism Project and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) aimed at bolstering coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The newsrooms will receive grants of $10,000 to $40,000 each, as well as coaching and training to help news organizations accelerate their digital transformations. In addition to strengthening coverage of the pandemic, the program is designed to help newsrooms combat misinformation, invest in technology and sustain journalists reporting the crisis. Newsrooms can use the funding to develop multimedia products, invest in new equipment and build reader-based revenue business models.

The recipients include national publishers, digital natives and also community outlets. 

Eighteen of the news organizations were also selected to participate in the Reader Revenue Accelerator, a program designed to foster innovation in the newsrooms. They will attend a 10-week mentoring program led by Tim Griggs, a former New York Times executive, which will include weekly training sessions to help participants transform their business based on a reader revenue model.

This is one of the opportunities that ICFJ is providing in partnership with the Facebook Journalism Project across four regions. These wide-ranging projects also target journalists and newsrooms in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

See the full list of selected newsrooms: https://www.facebook.com/journalismproject/programs/grants/latin-america-news-coronavirus-support-recipients-round-1 

Latest News

Legal Strategies for Foreign Journalists in the US

We spoke with two prominent lawyers in our network for their assessment of the new landscape, and strategies to navigate it. For the purposes of this resource, the attorneys preferred not to be named. Ultimately, be vigilant, they advised. Stay up to date with the news and developments as the situation is fast-changing. Understand which countries may be under more scrutiny from the administration.

Journalists from Nigeria, Venezuela Win Prestigious 2025 ICFJ Knight Awards

The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) today announced its 2025 Knight Award winners – two journalists who have demonstrated exceptional courage and perseverance in exposing wrongdoing in environments that are incredibly hostile to the press. The awardees are: César Batiz, an investigative journalist in exile who is the co-founder and director of the pioneering El Pitazo in Venezuela; and Philip Obaji Jr., a Nigerian journalist who has documented Russian atrocities in Central and West Africa as a correspondent for The Daily Beast.

Sustaining Journalism in Exile: New Toolkit Released

Once in exile to escape threats and danger, journalists soon face a new set of challenges: how to sustain their careers, communities and reporting from afar. ICFJ’s International Journalists’ Network (IJNet), in collaboration with the Network of Exiled Media Outlets (NEMO), has expanded its Exiled Media Toolkit to include a