Stronger media for more peaceful societies
Fondation Hirondelle creates and supports independent and public service media and contributes to their sustainability. We provide expertise, advice, and training to our team members – journalists, technicians, administrative staff and managers – as well as to employees of our partner organisations. We create and support revenue-generating structures and projects which contribute to media sustainability. These media development activities comprise the secondary focus of our projects.
Our expertise in this domain is based on over 30 years of experience in creating, developing and supporting media in war or post-conflict situations, humanitarian crises and countries in democratic transition.
In these complex contexts, our support for public and private media-comprising structural assistance, training and ensuring independence-improves their ability to sustainably fulfil their mission to inform and their role in society. By being better able to sustainably fulfil their mission, these media help to effectively guarantee their audiences’ right of access to information.
WHAT WE DO
- Support for independent, private or non-profit media on the basis of shared professional values, charters and codes for the production of high-quality, impartial public service information
- Support for public media when the government upon which they depend respects their editorial independence, and/or in the context of effective reform towards public service media
- Creation of new media outlets when the situation, urgency or need for editorial independence make it impossible to rely on existing structures
- Continuous education for our media and partners to guarantee the production of high-quality information, define responsibilities and recruit young people
- Theoretical and practical training for journalism students to ensure future generations of journalists in the media
- Development of revenue-generating activities and business models for our media and partners that respect our charters, particularly with regard to strict editorial independence
Examples of institutional support activities
- Multi-service audit: editorial, management, administrative, technical
- Evaluation of support needs
- Advice on management and manager training
- Development/updating of charters and codes
- Creation, rollout and analysis of audience surveys and focus groups
- Analysis of position and competition
- Redefinition of identity, image and mandate
- Implementation/revision of internal and external communications processes
- Production of graphic and audio/visual identity
- Identification of potential partners
- Advice on changes in legislation and media governance
- Fund-raising support
- Analysis of the advertising market and development of revenue-generating activities
Examples of training and editorial support
- Journalistic ethics and deontology
- Radio, TV and digital production
- Media education, fact-checking, monitoring and countering disinformation
- Specialist journalism: humanitarian, justice, economy, parliament, environment, election coverage, etc.
- Mobile journalism
- Presenting and voice coaching
- Creation of a radio or TV studio
- Technical skills for radio and TV (broadcasting, studio setup and maintenance, editing)
Our team
