Fellowships for climate investigations!

Do you have a cross-border and investigative climate story idea and are eager to work in a team setting? Then you can apply for Arena’s fellowship and get both financial support and mentoring for your story. Deadline is August 31!

Your project idea could be investigative, or data-related, or both. The fellowships are for journalist in any stages of their career, and we encourage both early- and mid-career reporters to apply. We also particularly encourage applications from journalists whose backgrounds are underrepresented in the European media.

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Managing director moves on

In the past year, Arena has taken a major leap in its organisational development, and now the managing director, Sanne Schim van der Loeff, has decided to move on to a new position. Sanne joined Arena in April 2022 and will leave Arena by mid-September 2023. ”We are very sad to see Sanne go. She took … Read more

Reference mailing list moves to Netzwerk Recherche

The mailing list for the European Network of Independent Journalism Organisations was set up after expression of interest during the Dataharvest Digital 2020 conference to launch a European network of independent journalism organisations. The list was jointly set up by Arena for Journalism in Europe and Netzwerk Recherche.

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Arena’s Climate Network moves up a gear

Three new faces join the Arena Climate Network, lots of new activities in the pipeline!

We are revitalising our Climate Network to offer investigative and data journalists across Europe a hub for collaboration, discussion and learning from each other. Among our many new activities will be a conference series, combined with training, a mentorship program, and guidance for the setting up of local networks.

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Join the Food & Water network meetings

Photo: Chris Ensminger on Unsplash

Get wiser and find new stories in our network series on investigating food and water issues in Europe! Free participation.

In the Arena Food & Water Network we come together to discuss how to investigate  issues around food and water in Europe. Together with experts from journalism, academia, civil society and economy we look at data sources, reasearch and journalistic projects that can inspire further investigations and cross-border collaborations.

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New investigation: Intensive agriculture that feeds us pollutes our waters

60 per cent of Europe’s surface water (lakes, rivers etc.) are not in a good chemical or ecological status, and more than a quarter of the ground water is in the same state, with agriculture remaining one of the main pressures on our water bodies. These numbers are probably underestimated, due to insufficient data and the current testing practices.

These are some of the conclusions highlighted in “Troubled Waters”, a new research project by Jelena Prtorić from Arena for Journalism in Europe and Luisa Izuzquiza from the German NGO FragDenStaat. The two have researched the status of Europe’s waterways, the severe impact of agricultural practices on water quality, and how the effort to curb and halt water pollution, at both European and national level, achieves “too little, too late”.

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Billions of public funds for big business – the Farmsubsidy database relaunched

The EU hands out more than €50 bn of public funds to the agricultural sector every year. The political side claims to support sustainable farming and family businesses, but the figures show otherwise. The big agricultural sector industries, corporations, the Catholic church and others are among the major beneficiaries, according to a series of fresh investigations published today.

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