A few weeks earlier, Hostwriter, a global cross-border media organisation, awarded our team with the Hostwriter Pitch Prize, a €1000 grant given to a team of journalists with a story idea.
With funding from the Robert Bosch Foundation, the European Cultural Foundation, the Otto Sprenger Foundation and Next Media Hamburg, Hostwriter executes its collaborative projects and connects journalists around the world. But winning the Google Impact Challenge in 2018 set the stage for the nonprofit to expand and develop globally.
Abang said the network helps journalists forge partnerships, which will help them in their careers. “It is a community for journalists to do their jobs and share the same space when they travel for story projects.”In 2021 Hostwriter launched Unbias the News, a remote cross-border newsroom run by female journalists. The aim was to create an outlet that would reflect their mission of creating a safe space for journalists who experience structural barriers in the field.
In 2021 Unbias the News called for pitches from journalists from the Global South for its maiden edition. The aim was to close these gaps and give unrepresented journalists the opportunity to get published. More than 800 journalists from 80 countries applied. The pitches’ topics included climate change, migration, and women’s rights.
The newsroom also provides training for journalists. In November 2021, for example, Purple Romero, a consulting editor at the newsroom, organised a workshop on fact-checking and fighting disinformation. This is a story that must be told by local reporters in each of these countries, Lee says. They are the ones who can ask the key questions to the authorities, especially officials in charge of urban planning.Selected journalists will be trained by the newsroom, connect and collaborate with their colleagues in other countries under the coverage of the project. The outcome of their research will be published by the newsroom and by other partner publications around the world.