About the Investigator Mentor Programme
Improving social awareness and engagement of young people in the fight against corruption has been a priority for TI-Hungary for years. With our Mentor-Mentee Program On Investigative Journalism, our main goal is to give young people who are interested in journalism but lack experience the opportunity to learn the basic rules and methods of this profession.
TI Hungary’svideo series ” That’s why I became a journalist“, in which journalist Dóra Ónody-Molnár, co-founder and executive director of the investigative portal Direkt36, András Pethő and Blanka Zöldi, editor-in-chief of Lakmusz.hu, talk about their experiences as journalists, is available on our YouTube channel.
Every year, five experienced and well-known journalists are invited to participate as mentors in the programme. In the past years, we have worked with editorials such as 24.hu, Átlátszó, HVG, the Hungarian edition of Radio Free Europe and Telex.
Every year we also pay special attention to giving a voice to the editorials based in the rural ares of Hungary. So every year we ask a mentor from the Debreciner in Debrecen, Szabad Pécs in Pécs or a member of the editorial staff of Nyugat.hu in Szombathely to participate as a mentor in our programme.
How does the programme work?
- Every year in the spring, TI-Hungary announces an open call, where the youth interested in participating in the program can apply with a short CV and a proposed topic. Applicants are selected by TI Hungary in consultation with the mentors.
- The mentors and their mentees start their work together for nearly half a year, based on cooperation and mutual trust. The mentor and the mentee develop the work plan together and jointly define working methods, deadlines and responsibilities. In addition to ongoing online contact, mentors and their mentees meet regularly in person to share information.
- The mentoring programme also includes online and offline workshops, which mentors and mentees are required to attend. The workshops will provide an introduction to the basic rules of the journalism profession, how to write articles and how to gather and process the information needed to write them.
- Mentors will commit to publishing articles produced during the programme on an online portal and/or in a print newspaper by the deadline. The articles will be jointly annotated by the mentors and their mentees.
Who will judge the entries?
The articles are evaluated by a professional jury on the basis of three main criteria: the quantity and quality of the investigative work, the relevance of the topic and the accessibility of the work.
The jury will be composed of:
- Zsolt Bogár, Editor-in-Chief of Deutsche Welle Hungary;
- József Péter Martin, Executive Director of Transparency International (TI) Hungary;
- András Stumpf, journalist, co-founder of Válaszonline.hu and
- Ágnes Urbán, Associate Professor at Corvinus University of Budapest, Director of the Mérték Media Monitor.
Our booklet on the Mentor-Mentee Program On Investigative Journalism in Hungarian can be downloaded from this link.
TI-Hungary’s toolkit on the structure of media, the challenges of investigative journalism and the content consumption habits of young people entitled Facts and Fallacies , by media researcher Ádám Guld, Associate Professor at the University of Pécs, investigative journalist Szabolcs Panyi, fellow associate of Direkt36, founding editor of VSquare, and journalist Judit Bálint, editor to the children’s magazine Kispolgár, are available for download in Hungarian and English from our website.
