When money starts flowing into a country from the European Union, who is held accountable to ensure it gets where it needs to go in a fair and equitable manner? Who asks the tough questions to politicians, both national and local, about what projects are funded and why? The answer, of course, is journalists.
And that’s where GCJD comes in. The Global Center is partnering with Jan Kochanowski University (JKU) in Kielce, Poland to assist young journalists in following EU money into local communities, and holding officials accountable in the process.
The three-day workshop will be based around a case study of Chmielnik, a small town near Kielce that has poured millions of dollars into restoring the small town’s long-derelict synagogue and the opening of an Education and Museum Center dedicated to Jews and Jewish history in the Świętokrzyski Province.
GCJD will pull in experts from around the US and Europe to guide young professional journalists, along with journalism students at JKU through a series of theoretical and practical training sessions. Topics will include how journalists can maintain independence while reporting in small communities, how social media journalism can be used to reach a greater audience and pull them into the more traditional mediums, how to verify information, and how to build credibility with sources and audiences.
This will be the Global Center’s first of many collaborations with partner universities, as it fulfills two of the Center’s most important missions: training professional journalists and educating future ones.
Global Center for Journalism and Democracy
Dan Rather Communications Building, Room 201, Huntsville, TX 77340