European Federation of Journalists

Stand Up for Journalism

Stand Up for Journalism II – Resilience and Rights in a Changing Media Landscape aims to strengthen the capacity of journalists’ unions and associations to respond to digitalisation, precarious employment, and threats to media freedom, through promoting social dialogue, inclusive labour markets, and access to quality work in the changing media environment.

The project will deliver five thematic workshops in Cyprus, Finland, Hungary, North Macedonia and Portugal and a final conference in Italy. All this alongside national capacity-building programmes in these countries, ad-hoc training for all EFJ members, and a European social media campaign. Topics include youth recruitment and unionism, equal rights, training and upskilling, safety of journalists, union renewal, digital labour rights, and the ethical use of AI in journalism.

It will directly involve over 100 union leaders, trainers, journalists, and media workers from 30+ EFJ member organisations across EU and candidate countries, with indirect benefits for thousands of journalists through improved representation, training access, and advocacy at the national and European levels.

Expected results include stronger union organising strategies, increased participation of young and freelance journalists, improved collective bargaining capacity, and better understanding of digital tools and rights. The project will also promote union-led AI governance and media ethics.

These objectives will be achieved through:

  1. A series of 6 thematic capacity-building workshops targeting journalists’ unions and associations in all EU and candidate countries. The themes of the workshops will focus on the scope of the call but specific to journalism and the media sector: 1) Youth, organising and recruitment, 2) Training and upskilling, 3) Equal rights for all workers, 4) Safety of journalists, 5) Unionism and media freedom, and 6) Labour rights in the digital age
  2. On-demand and tailor-made European expert training/coaching at national level for EFJ’s members, journalist unions from around Europe, as a direct follow-up from the European workshops of “Stand Up for Journalism” project.
  3. A national capacity-building programme in 6 targeted countries representing different regions of Europe (from the affiliated entities) will be implemented.
  4. A final conference, bringing together representatives of journalists’ unions, social partners, policy-makers and experts to highlight the good practices and key findings from the workshops and the research studies.

The first cycle of this project, Stand Up for Journalism I, ran from 2024 – 2026 with partners form France, Belgium, Denmark, Montenegro and Turkey.

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This project is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

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