LONDON, ON, March 18, 2019 /CNW/ - The Forum Freelance Fund (FFF) today opened its 2019 competition for bursaries to help freelance journalists attend hostile environment training. Thirty-two Canadian freelancers or foreign freelancers working for Canadian media have already been helped by the fund.
The FFF bursary competition is run annually by the Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence and Trauma, an educational charity concerned with the physical and mental wellbeing of journalists.
The Rules for the 2019 competition are available on the Forum's website. The bursaries are worth $2,500 each.
In a separate competition opening in May, the Forum also offers The Portenier Human Rights Bursary, which is open to freelance journalists and independent documentary-makers of any nationality with significant projects focused on human rights abuses. This bursary of $3,000 is also for hostile environment training.
Both competitions are run in association with the Rory Peck Trust (RPT), a UK-based charity for freelancers. The Forum and RPT are both members of the ACOS Alliance, an unprecedented coalition of news organizations, freelance journalist associations and press freedom organizations working together to champion safe and responsible journalistic practices for freelance and local journalists.
The FFF bursaries are sponsored by CBC News and supported by Radio-Canada and individual donors. The Forum in general is supported by The Globe and Mail and Cision/CNW.
Forum president Cliff Lonsdale said: "Because of declining revenues, news organizations have to depend more and more on freelancers instead of staff correspondents all over the world . Inevitably that includes some of the most dangerous places on the planet. Few organizations are able to offer training to all the freelancers they use, and few freelancers earn enough to pay for training themselves. These bursaries contribute to alleviating that problem."
Applications for 2019 FFF Bursaries will close on April 13.
Our thanks to Cision /CNW for supporting this announcement.
SOURCE Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence and Trauma
Please see the Canadian Journalism Forum website http://www.journalismforum.ca or contact Jane Hawkes, Executive Producer, Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence and Trauma, 1-519 852-4946, [email protected]
http://www.journalismforum.ca/
Share this article