By Zahra Salah Uddin
Since the inception of Hostwriter’s newsroom Unbias the News, one of our missions has been to have multi-perspective, nuanced reporting, creating a new kind of journalism that sounds more like the audience it serves. This especially applies to stories that have an international scope, such as the global climate crisis. Unbias the News aims to bring stories from underreported regions and perspectives to add quality to conversations about this topic and offer solutions as well.
Therefore, we couldn’t be more thrilled when we found out that Unbias the News is one of the ten grantees in the European Journalism Centre’s Solutions Journalism Accelerator program!
For our project, titled ‘Chain reactions: How the green revolution can reshape sustainable development’, we are continuing our spirit of collaborative journalism and will work closely with Perspective Daily, a Germany-based publication that specializes in constructive journalism.
Our collective aim is to use cross-border solutions journalism to research new opportunities that may arise as a result of the transition to a green economy in Germany, such as food and energy, and the types of secondary effects this will have on local communities in other parts of the world.
There is currently much discussion in Germany regarding energy transition due to security issues related to reliance on Russian fossil fuels. While this new urgency is welcome, we are at a point in the global climate crisis where radical solutions are needed, that don’t create new problems for partners and neighbors. It is our role as the press to be the scrutinous watchdog to ensure that new solutions towards energy transition in Europe are not affecting other regions and communities in a risky way, but rather help and contribute to sustainability beyond Germany.
“We are delighted to have the opportunity to investigate the green energy transition from a totally new angle: its impact on the sustainable development goals,” says Tina Lee, editor-in-chief at Unbias the News. “At a moment where the world is rushing to find climate solutions, it’s crucial to take the whole picture into account, and see which solutions work for everyone, including communities who will bear the brunt of the impact.”
In this collaborative project that we pitched with Perspective Daily, Unbias the News ensures access to a global network of over 6,000 journalists worldwide through our parent organization Hostwriter. At Unbias the News we aim to support journalists from underreported regions that face structural barriers to make the world of climate reporting more inclusive. Meanwhile, Perspective Daily brings extensive experience in constructive journalism and fills the gaps left by mainstream German media by providing an exclusive focus on constructive journalism. Their team also consists of authors that are experts on the topics of climate and energy and are experienced with data analyses related to such topics.
“We are very happy to be given this opportunity to work together with Unbias the News to tell the global solutions stories behind the ongoing “Green revolution” in Germany,” says Han Langeslag, founder of Perspective Daily. “Already during the grant writing, we found out how Unbias the News and Perspective Daily complement each other and are excited to finally put our plan into action!”