June 4, 2017
Today marks the one-year anniversary of the Global Reporting Centre, and we’re proud to share what we’ve been able to achieve to date.
We launched the GRC in June 2016 with a workshop called Re-Imaging Global Reporting, with leading journalists from around the world brainstorming about how to innovate innovating international reporting.
Twelve months later, we have more than a dozen projects in production, have won numerous awards, worked with a world class group of collaborators, and employ more than a dozen staff members and interns. Through multimedia, documentary, written content, and exhibits, we have reached millions of people with stories that would not otherwise get told.
We are working with collaborators around the world to develop a number of in-depth projects on under-covered issues. Strangers at Home is an award-winning website we are developing into a portmanteau documentary project about xenophobia in Europe, with prominent storytellers throughout the continent. Alcoholics Unanonymous is experimenting with empowerment storytelling about alcohol dependence. Million Dollar Meds is an award-winning knowledge mobilization website about expensive drugs for rare diseases. Crisis in Democracy is a book project inspired by research by political scientist Max Cameron, documenting a global trend of countries straying from democratic governments. America’s Digital Dumping Ground revisited our Emmy Award-winning reporting on China’s e-waste problem and achieved record downloads for the Center for Investigative Reporting’s popular podcast Reveal. Boko Haram: Between Good and Evil is a documentary by collaborator Mellissa Fung, focusing on Nigerian school girls who are survivors of the Boko Haram kidnapping. GRC collaborate Janet Tobias directed Unseen Enemy, a documentary exploring the challenges of preventing the next global pandemic. GRC collaborator Jennifer Yang will soon be traveling to Africa and Central Asia to report on the challenges of treating Rh Disease. And we’ve partnered with a group of Somali reporters for Through Somali Eyes, documenting what it is like to be a reporter in one of the most dangerous countries for journalists.
In 2016 the GRC recruited former Al Jazeera Cairo bureau chief Mohamed Fahmy as the inaugural Global Journalist in Residence, immediate after his release from prison. Fahmy spent his time at the centre lecturing about press freedom, working on his book The Marriott Cell: An Epic Journey from Cairo’s Scorpion Prison to Freedom. This year, we invited Iraqi photojournalist Ali Arkady to serve as Journalist in Residence, after his remarkable revelations of torture and murder of civilians in Mosul by Iraqi forces.
We’ve partnered with other institutes to organize high-profile public events. In collaboration with National Geographic, we hosted an exclusive screening of Years of Living Dangerously, a documentary about carbon pricing, with a group of experts. Price of Sex is a series of free photography exhibitions of the work of GRC collaborator Mimi Chakarova exploring the global sex trade, with moderated discussions with experts and stakeholders. At the Hidden Costs of Global Supply Chains Workshop, we gathered Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists to brainstorm about investigations about slavery, food security and the environmental impact of shipping. We gathered groups of public health experts for screenings of early cuts of Unseen Enemy, to help refine the film and build interest in the project. Last month we collaborated with Investigative Reporters & Editors to host their Cross-Border Reporting Workshop, a sold out conference co-organized with Veritas in which investigative reporters from across the continent met to discuss cross-border reporting techniques and explore ways of developing international collaborations.
We recently completed the largest survey of international reporting practice, with close to 500 responses from foreign correspondents and fixers, and we plan to present our findings at Columbia University in September, and at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Johannesburg in November.
We’ve worked hard to raise our global profile through media interviews and our social media presence. We have built our social media to well over 10,000 followers, with significant engagement on both Twitter and Facebook. There have been several stories in major media outlets about the GRC, including an essay in Harvard’s Nieman Reports, an interview on National Public Radio, a front-page Globe & Mail story, and articles in MediaShift and Poynter.
Past projects from the GRC and the student-focused International Reporting Program have earned the top awards from virtually every major media association including: the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (Emmy), the Society of Professional Journalists (Sigma Delta Chi x 2), the Radio Television Digital News Association (Murrow Award x 4), the Online News Association (Online Journalism Award), the Jack Webster Foundation (Webster Award), and the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (Webby honor x 2). Past projects have been used in academic conferences worldwide, cited in academic journals, and credited for helping to change government policies.
So… we’ve been busy!
To make all this possible, we have relied on the generous support of our supporters. To date the GRC has raised close to $900,000 in cash donations and in-kind support, and we’d like to extend a huge thank you to all the foundations, grants, institutions and individuals who have helped build this unique organization. We have big plans for the next year, and would love your continued support and interest.
Consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Global Reporting Centre here.