Media in Conflict – The Press Freedom Situation in Ukraine 2.0

Press freedom is an essential component of everyday life – not only for journalists. A free press is the basic requirement of a functioning democracy, and it is rooted in the fact that the freedom to report critically and independently enables opinion formation within society.
Organization like Reporters Without Borders state that there is a perceivable increase in the danger facing journalists while reporting. This is also an issue in European countries.

Ukraine – torn between Russia and Europe – is of particular interest when looking closer at the media rights situation. Ongoing political events – such as the election of president Volodymyr Zelensky, or the conflict in Eastern Ukraine – are shaping the political discussion, and are widely visible in the international media response.

Project
During the project „Media in Conflict – Press freedom in Ukraine“ we are going to research the topic of press freedom in Ukraine. Within the online-workshop, we will produce media pieces for the blog of politikorange.de in cooperation with the Center for Civil Liberties (CCL) in Kiev.

Program
For the first part of the whole workshop program, some of us have been meeting in September 2019 in Berlin for five days with young media makers from Ukraine and Germany. The second part of the workshop will be organized as an online format from CCL between the 6^th until the 15^th of November 2020.

The workshop focuses on the difficulties that journalists still have to face when it comes to reports on more controversial issues like corruption in a conflicted country. Furthermore, we would like to open up a discussion about personal experiences with the particular press system in Ukraine and Germany. It is important for us to debate on explicit equal terms of both countries, which will entail critical questioning of the media situation in Germany.

The workshop is devided into three phases:

1st workshop phase (6.-8.11.2020) 
With digital workshops, talks, discussion groups and interviews during the weekend.

2nd writing phase (9.-14.11.2020)
After the workshop weekend, you will have one week to write your articles independently. For this purpose, we will set up a time slot from Monday to Friday in the late afternoon/early evening for a digital writing conference – there you can get advice from the politikorange-team and/or the editor-in-chief, discuss the status of your article or simply write together.

3rd evaluation phase (15.11.2020)
At the very end we will have a final editorial conference where we will discuss your articles and evaluate the project together.

politikorange maintains a zero-tolerance policy on discriminatory utterances, promotes awareness and gender-neutral usage of language. Discussions will be held in a safe and explicitly discrimination-free environment.

Participation
Good command of English is necessary, as it will be the working language of the whole project. Language skills in Ukrainian and/or Russian will be taken into account positively. If you’re at least 18 years old and not older than 27 years old, interested in media and Ukraine, you should sign up by 11^th of October!

We are looking for…

…editors: You’ve already gained some experience in journalism and you would like to improve your skills? You’re interested in Ukraine as well as international relations and the issue of press freedom? You’re confident in communicating and writing in English? Sign up HERE by 11^th of October at the latest!

Your tasks:
• Preparation for the workshop
• Researching topics together with the other young media makers in advance
• Organizing interviews together with the other young media makers
• Working together with young media makers from Ukraine
• Producing media pieces for the politikorange blog
• Participation in the workshops

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…one editor-in-chief: You already gained some experience in journalism and in managing groups? You have some knowledge about the Ukraine and would like to dig deeper? Sign up HERE by 11^th of October at the latest!

Your tasks:
• Being responsible for the content produced by the young media makers
• Preparation for the workshop
• Supporting the editors in finding and choosing topics
• Preparing and leading editorial meetings
• Supporting the editorial work of the young media makers
• Editing articles

There is a small expense allowance for the two editors-in-chief (one from Ukraine and one from Germany).

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