Brazilian Journalists Invited to Apply for 4-Day "Reporting Land Rights" Course

Urbanization, resource extraction, forestry concessions, the growth of agri-business: Property Rights underpin many of the major issues that Brazilian reporters cover every day. Yet few stories explore the complex social, economic and political drivers that have left Brazil with one of the highest levels of inequality of land distribution in the world.

This program, which results from a collaboration between the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and the Thomson Reuters Foundation, will assist Brazilian journalists to understand property rights and incorporate it in their reporting, whether they are covering business and industry, the environment, urban revitalization, indigenous rights, food security, or a range of other topics. 

Inadequate access to land and insecure land tenure are factors behind rural poverty, urban slum growth, gender inequality, violence and human rights abuses.  But when those issues are controversial or sensitive how easy is it to report without inflaming tensions further—or even compromising your own safety? 

The program will involve a four-day workshop in Rio de Janeiro from August 15-18, 2017. We will also offer modest funding to journalists with outstanding story ideas on property rights, as well as editorial support to help them realize these ideas, drawing on the Reuters principles of accuracy, integrity and freedom from bias.

The four-day workshop will feature content on understanding property rights, and how the issue relates to Brazil; journalism skills and research techniques; approaches to building sources in this field; and talks from guest experts. 

ELIGIBILITY

• Journalists working for domestic media anywhere in Brazil are eligible
• Journalists working in any medium may apply—print, radio, TV, online
• Journalists must be fluent in Portuguese and have conversational or fluent English
• Journalists must have a minimum of one year's experience. They should either be working full-time for a media organization, or a freelancer whose main work is journalism

FUNDING

We will cover all transport and subsistence costs of journalists participating in this program.

SUBMISSIONS

When applying you will be asked to upload the following documents—please have these ready:

2 relevant work samples (maximum file size 5 MB) – in English if possible. For stories not in English, please include a 250-word English summary about the story. 

A letter from your editor consenting to your participation in the program and committing to publish/broadcast resulting stories

Please note you will be asked to submit one or more story ideas within your application.  We will not share your ideas with anyone. 

If you have any difficulties applying, please email [email protected]. 

APPLY HERE