Voices Festival: A week left to register for the Voices Journalism Awards
“Self-realisation” is the word Anja Matić chose to describe her experience at the Voices festival as an awardee. “Thrilling” was Vicky Hristova’s choice, and “inspiring” was Ilaria Potenza’s.
The Voices Festival was created to provide a place for the media community and citizens interested in promoting better-informed societies to meet and discuss crucial themes shaping our relationship with information and media.
In this context, the festival will put in the spotlight 10 talents and innovative projects to promote outstanding work in the fields of Media Literacy (5 awards) and Journalism (5 awards).
We invite European journalists who would like to showcase their work to apply before 27 October for one of the five categories:
- Up-and-coming: innovative and ethical use of AI
- Impact: cross-border investigative reporting
- Local resilience: local reporting for European communities
- Remarkable youth: promising journalists under 30
- Emerging talent: the best of climate journalism
If you have worked on one of these topics, you are particularly encouraged to send your work to us.
The winners will be invited to Zagreb to receive their prize (€1,000) and discuss their work with the Voices community.
In Florence, the first Journalism Voices Award were awarded to Ilaria Potenza, Vicky Hristova, and Anja Matić in the “Remarkable Youth” category; as well as Helena Rodríguez Gómez with Benjamin Hindrichs and Sandra Abdelbaki, and Laura Llach Gil with Lucia Riera in the “Impact” category.
All you need to do is to believe in yourself and dare to apply, say the 2024 winners. “Give it a try!”, said Vicky, who received an award for their work on inclusivity.
“Even if you don’t think that your work is spectacular, it does matter. Every journalist should know that their work matters to the world.” In the same spirit, Ilaria wrote: “We often feel inappropriate, thinking that there is someone else who does and writes things better than we do. We need to overcome this prejudice and try to seize the opportunities, because it is not only us who tell the story, but also the lives we include in our work. Whose voice deserves to be heard by as many people as possible. So don’t worry: apply and enjoy the journey!”
“Just try and apply without much thinking because you never know what could happen,” Anja adds. She was rewarded for her radio show that addresses diverse societal issues. “This was my first application for a journalism award and I don’t even consider myself as a “real journalist” yet, so you can imagine the shock when I got an email that I won.”
Vicky, Anja and Ilaria found out about Voices by chance. Anja explains: “I read a post of the Croatian journalist Maja Sever, who is also the President of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), and just out of curiosity, decided to apply. If I don’t get it, I will still go and check it out – I said to myself.” As for Vicky, they found the sponsors and the preliminary programs interesting, and just like Anja, they decided to give it a go.
Ilaria, who covered the medical crisis in Gaza, saw an opportunity to have her journalistic skills recognised by her peers: “I heard about Voices via a European institution’s social network. I immediately decided to participate because I thought that an award dedicated to the skills of journalists who tell stories around Europe is the most meritocratic thing around us. Those who do this job need to know that there is someone ready to support them, allowing their stories to go far.”
If you are interested, you can find the eligibility criteria here.
See you in Zagreb!
“Being a journalist is more than a job, it’s like an identity. You are the voice of the people.” says Vicky Hristova, DW journalist and 2024 Voices Award winner.
