Congratulations to Yermi Brenner (Israel/Germany) and Silvia Giannelli (Italy) for winning the 2nd place of this year’s Hostwriter Prize, which is endowed with 2.000€.
A photo from the day Silvia and Yermi met for the first time in ‘real life’
An exemplary portrayal of how to use the platform
“Yermi had the idea of doing this cross-border investigation, and he realized he would not be able to do it without a collaborator in Italy. He logged into Hostwriter, and searched for ‘co-authorship’ in Italy with a journalist whose expertise includes migration. Silvia’s name was one of the first to come up, and that’s how everything got started.”
A picture perfect cross-border collaboration
“From the first day of our collaboration, we created a Google Doc and shared in it every piece of information or insight we collected. We brainstormed for questions before important interviews, translated for each other valuable researches, and constantly picked the other’s brain in order to digest and understand the vast amount of data and quotes we were collecting. We chatted late into nights ping-ponging on impressions we had of interviewees and ideas on how to develop our research, what step to take next.”
The result
“[A piece about] the conundrum African and Arab refugees face when they arrive in Europe through Italy, while they hope to reach wealthier countries. Our article, which was featured extensively in Al Jazeera America’s homepage – is a product of our extensive collaboration, and reflects the sum of our knowledge and efforts.”
You can read their piece either on Al Jazeera America or on InPerspective – our partner organisation published the original piece plus a professional translation into German and other languages are to follow.
The article on InPerspective in several languages
The article on Al Jazeera America