Newsreel

NEWSREEL stands for two EU-funded projects in which the Erich Brost Institute has worked with European partners to promote innovation in journalism training. E-learning materials were developed to prepare budding journalists for the future. The projects were funded by the EU Commission via the Hungarian Erasmus+ agency Tempus Public Foundation as part of the Erasmus+ program line Strategic Partnerships (KA203).

The consortium's second project, “NEWSREEL2 - New Teaching Fields for the Next Generation of Journalists” (2020-1-HU01-KA203-078824), ran from October 2020 to August 2023. The EBI is contributing its expertise in the areas of reporting on flight and migration as well as foreign reporting and developing teaching materials on these topics. An e-learning course with a total of five modules is also available for the area of foreign reporting.

In addition to the EBI and the University of Pécs (Hungary), which led the project, the ISCTE-University Institute Lisbon (Portugal), the University of Bucharest (Romania), the Masaryk University in Brno (Czech Republic) and the Berlin-based organization Hostwriter were also involved as practice partners. Hostwriter brings together journalists from different countries for joint research and thus stands for collaborative cross-border journalism. 

The project partners developed curricula and teaching materials for the following areas: storytelling in social media, graphic journalism, fact-checking and measures against disinformation as well as artificial intelligence and language assistants in journalism. In addition, materials were developed to sensitize prospective journalists to current challenges for democracy. 

A research report coordinated and published by the EBI in summer 2021 first analyzed the status quo in all subject areas and identified deficits and areas in need of innovation in journalism training to date. It served as the basis for the development of curricula and teaching materials. An online glossary and a teaching manual were also published. Further information can be found on the project website.

The e-learning materials were tested in pilot courses at the participating institutes and are available online as open access materials. In 2022, a summer school was held in Berlin under the leadership of Hostwriter, where students from all project countries worked together on journalistic projects. The results and materials developed by the consortium were presented at multiplier events in Pécs (September 2021), Brno (June 2022), Berlin (September 2022) and Lisbon (March 2023) during the project period. 

The Erich Brost Institute was already involved in the predecessor project “NEWSREEL - New Skills for the Next Generation of Journalists” (2017-2020, 2017-1-HU01-KA203-036038). In this project, EBI employees Tina Bettels-Schwabbauer and Nadia Leihs developed e-learning materials on collaborative journalism that were used in various seminars. In this first NEWSREEL project, the project partners dealt with ethical challenges in journalism, new business models and data journalism. The project also included a research report and an online glossary as well as joint teaching events. Further information can be found on the project website.