News

Arena is partner in pioneering crossborder journalism education

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Arena for Journalism in Europe is partner in a pioneering education for crossborder journalism with five European journalism schools, and the project has just received €340,000 in support from Erasmus+. A two-year pilot project will gather journalism master students from the University of Gothenburg, the Centre de Formation des Journalistes in Paris and the University … Read more

Kickstart your crossborder journalism

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Apply to join the European Collaborative Journalism Programme (ECJP)

The Toepfer Foundation and Arena for Journalism in Europe have joined forces to support collaborative journalism among journalists from all over Europe and call for applications to participate in the European Collaborative Journalism Programme.

Digital transformation is putting the media system under pressure. This affects the quality and diversity of the media but also hampers more resource-demanding investigative journalism and in-depth research. At the same time, cross-border stories have become more prevalent such as in the fields of migration, organized crime, pollution or consumer protection. Collaborative journalism provides the means to maintain investigations despite declining resources. It allows to pool resources and expertise, to analyse facts and data jointly and to also publish in several media at the same time.

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Cities for Rent: Investigating Corporate Landlords Across Europe

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Everyone needs a home, and even more during a pandemic.

High demand for rental flats across European cities has contributed to make housing a very attractive investment. At at time when many people can’t find an affordable and decent flat to live, reports of a huge increase in investment flows into housing across Europe go hand in hand with stories of abusive practices by ‘corporate landlords’, companies that buy and rent out housing for profit.

Where is all that money coming from? Who are the companies and investors buying so much housing across Europe? How does this phenomenon affect people’s lives and homes in European cities?

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Join the new European network for journalistic non-profits

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A new generation of news organisations is rising all across Europe – one that is strongly committed to serve its audience through public interest journalism and is eagerly trying to build up new, sustainable business models for our profession. In a joint effort Netzwerk Recherche and Arena for Journalism in Europe together with partners from academia (HBI, ZeMKI) and philanthropy (Schöpflin Stiftung) will – for the first time – bring together this emerging scene of journalistic entrepreneurs that we call The New Sector.

We identified close to a hundred news outlets all over Europe that are part of this journalistic evolution. We will soon create an online map and a searchable database of Europe’s vivid scene of journopreneurs in which we want to display the agility, versatility and creativity found among its members.

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The Climate Networks reaches out at BETD

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On Thursday, March 18 (10.30-11.30 CET), Arena for Journalism in Europe will be at Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue (BETD) Media Fellows – Connecting Journalists Conference to present the Arena Climate Network. Our network coordinator, Jelena Prtorić, will discuss the benefits and importance of networking, will introduce different elements and features of the Arena Climate Network … Read more

The Arena Housing Project is flying

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The Arena Housing Project has recently experienced some of its busiest weeks as it has launched more tools and resources for journalists and researchers working on housing across Europe. We have welcomed Jelena Prtorić as a Community Coordinator at Arena, and it’s in a big part thanks to hear that you can now follow the … Read more

The coronavirus fuels journalistic collaborations

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The coronavirus has given new aspects to the Arena Housing Project and the collaboration in the network – and at the same time, new problems arise in the housing field because of the virus.

The Arena Housing Project is a result of the Dataharvest 2019 conference, where many sessions focused on the housing crisis in Europe.

One of Arena’s main goals is to inspire, create and coordinate networks to promote and facilitate cross-border collaborative journalism. The present crisis has made even clearer how important collaborative journalism is when we want to research and report on complex issues that don’t care about borders. The Housing Network now has 176 persons affiliated – mainly journalists, but also housing experts from academia, activists and others.

We build resources together – shared databases and interactive map

Everybody was told to stay home to prevent the spread of the virus. But what about those who don’t have a home? The homeless population is vulnerable even at the best of times, and they are especially at risk during the Covid-19 pandemic because they have little access to hygiene, and many have bad health.

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COVID-19 pushes flats from Airbnb to the long-term rental market

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This week, the Arena Housing Project published its first piece of curation journalism. The text gives an overview of how Airbnb investors are moving their flats to the long-term rental market – and lets you take the next step in the research and reporting.

As the global pandemic of COVID-19 has brought tourism and travelling to a halt, nice-looking flats that previously were only offered at daily rates on platforms like Airbnb have been appearing as long-term rentals in cities across Europe.

Housing watchers, however, assume those flats will go back to the tourism market as soon as people can travel again.

For critics of tourist rental platforms, this is further proof that the likes of Airbnb are turning housing into an investment object: when homes become a financial asset to exploit for profit rather than a public good

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