Global Press 2 0 1 3 INSTITUTE ANNUAL REPORT 2013 BY T H E NUMBERS FOUNDER’S LETTER • Number of GPI Journalists Who Received Leadership NUMBER OF WOMEN EMPLOYED: Dear Friends, At the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) annual meeting Training: 18 last fall, I witnessed how important meaningful collabo- • Number of GPI News Desks: 26 Global Press Institute experienced exciting growth and change rations are to creating social progress. We can create • Number of News Desks That Received Advanced throughout 2013. Overall, it was one of the most important change as individuals and organizations, but our ability Technology Training: 15 years in our history. For GPI, 2013 was defined by technology, to address major challenges and opportunities requires teamwork, and tenacious growth: powerful partnerships – an important lesson for GPI as we embark on our own CGI commitment to train and NUMBER OF GPI JOURNALISTS WHO GPI hosted more in-person trainings in 2013 than employ 100 women across 20 rural communities to re- RECEIVED ADVANCED JOURNALISM in any single previous year. These trainings al- port on issues of importance to women and girls. 136 lowed GPI reporters new and old to deepen core AND MULTIMEDIA TRAINING: skill sets and embark on advanced skills train- I also had the honor of speaking with President Clin- ings, like photojournalism and video journalism. ton in a private meeting about GPI. We talked about our programs at length and he made clear his admira- GPI prioritized cross-cultural collaboration in 2013. We tion for and commitment to our work. We are excited hosted our first-ever editor’s conferences in San Francisco to have such an important advocate for both women’s in February and October, at which we welcomed GPI edi- rights and our unique form of international journalism! tors from Argentina, Nepal, Nigeria, Rwanda and Sri Lanka. Collaboration paid off for our reporters! GPI Rwanda As we look to expand GPI into new media markets and new 41 • Percentage of News Stories Syndicated: 100% reporters Noella Nbihogo and Gloriose Isugi won the countries in the coming years (in 2014 we plan to expand to four • Number of Syndication Partners: 64 Ulrich Wickert Award for Child Rights for their coverage new countries, including Morocco and Guatemala), we know • Number of Awards: 2 of the exploitation of girls in Rwanda. And GPI Cam- that it is only with the continued support and engagement of • Total Monthly Readership: 15 million+ eroon reporter Comfort Mussa was one of 20 finalists our community that we will get there. selected to participate in the African Story Challenge, a new program of the African Media Initiative and the So while we have always appreciated teamwork, you might say Gates Foundation that encourages innovative, multi- that it has begun to take on a new level of importance for GPI. NUMBER OF NEWS STORIES PUBLISHED: media storytelling that “aims to improve the health and Our deepest thanks to all of you – our donors, readers, and prosperity of Africans.” Comfort teamed up with GPI friends – for being part of the team. senior reporter (now regional editor) Wairimu Michengi to produce a two-part, two-country report on chal- Let’s get to work! GPI Photojournalism Training, Kashmir (above left) Kumala Wijeratne, GPI Sri Lanka, lenges local farmers and fisherman face without modern (above right) Lynda Michel, GPI Haiti preservation technology. Best, Perhaps the greatest success of 2013 was the launch of our two new web platforms, Global Press Journal, the new home for our award-winning news coverage; and Global Press News Service, our pioneering news syndica- Cristi Hegranes 590 tion platform. The News Service launched after we were Founder and Executive Director inundated with requests to syndicate our news content and quickly re-learned the lesson that we can magnify our impact many times over through partnerships with other NGOs, media outlets, educational organizations, YOU MAY NOTICE new some new language and companies. Through our syndication relationship in this annual report. Going forward, GPI will with Reuters alone the audience for our news tripled to more than 15 million readers. no longer use the term “developing countries” as a blanket phrase to refer to countries in When GPI wanted to launch our photojournalism initia- varied stages of development. Instead, we tive, Photo Editor Paige Stoyer helped rally the GPI com- munity to contribute through our inaugural Kickstarter will refer to the countries and communities campaign – and many of you participated. Thanks to in which we operate as “developing media the more than 50 donors to that effort, we were able markets” — places where, regardless of to raise over $24,000 to train and acquire new, state- of-the-art cameras for nearly 40 GPI senior reporters! economic development status, the media landscape remains underdeveloped. These When we recognized the opportunity to increase are the communities in which GPI’s programs the efficiency of our editorial process, we made the thrive and on which we will continue to mission-aligned decision to move most of our edi- torial operations abroad by training and promoting focus our work. five senior reporters and staff members to become country and regional editors for Global Press Journal. EMPOW ERI N G WOM EN GPI believes in the power of journalism to change women’s lives: from educating women on their rights and the policies that affect them, to employing them to report on their communities, CONGRATULATIONS to the following GPI uses journalism to empower women in developing media reporters and staf members who were markets around the world. promoted to editorial and training positions in 2013: Tara Bhatarai, Nepal Desk Editor; Ivonne Jeannot-Laens, Argentina Desk Editor; Wairimu Michengi, Africa Desk Editor; Patricia Sugi, Rwanda Desk Editor; Manori Wijesekera, Asia Desk Editor; and Nakinti Nofuru, Trainer. GPI Cameroon News Desk In 2013 GPI empowered women in new and profound ways, promoting six senior reporters and staff members to editorial and training positions and providing advanced journalism, editorial, and multimedia training to over 40 long-time GPI reporters in 14 countries such as Cameroon, Mexico, Sri Lanka, and Zambia. Aliya Bashir, GPI Indian-administered Kashmir Our multimedia initiatives empowered women through Manori Wijesekera, Regional Editor, GPI Asia (Sri Lanka) technology, providing them camera kits and laptops and teaching them how to use these technologies for professional “FIRST OF ALL I would like “A WOMAN multiplies the purposes. We are especially proud of our new video programs in post-conflict communities such as Indian-administered Kashmir, to give you a big thanks for impact of an investment made Uganda, and Chiapas, Mexico. increased payment… Earning in her future by extending GPI also hired new reporters in Haiti, Nepal, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, [for my] own self has great benefits to the world around and Zambia. With more full-time reporters than ever before, wages rose substantially and more reporters earned health care value for me as economical her, creating a beter life for her coverage, impacting not only our reporters but their families and communities as well. independency is the major tool family, and building a strong to be empowered… I am much community.” excited working more and – USAID, 2012 earning more with new zeal.” – Usha K.C., GPI Nepal GPI Argentina News Desk CHANGIN G T H E NEWS GPI exists to reshape the field of international journalism by solving a number of problems plaguing the industry: “YOU should look skeptically at anyone who treats an entire The economic model is broken. According to the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, “a continent as an undiferentiated single foreign correspondent costs a newspaper around $250,000 a year.” As a result, over the past 25 years, mass of poverty and disease.” more than 60% of all foreign bureaus have been closed and foreign news in daily newspapers has declined by 53%. GPI fills this void at less than 2% of the cost. – Bill Gates Women are underrepresented in the news. According to the Global Media Monitoring Project, for every woman who appears in the news, there are five men. Accordingly, women’s voices are rarely heard on the topics that dominate the news agenda, and women are rarely featured in news stories as authorities or experts. GPI helps correct this imbalance by training and employing female journalists. Most news agencies are missing the real stories. According to a study by Routledge Media, 97% of international news coverage is focused on just four topics: war, natural disaster, poverty, and disease. GPI journalists report on issues in their communities that (below) Mayela Sanchez, GPI Mexico are often ignored by other news media, such as health, arts and culture, and entrepreneurship. GPI ONCE AGAIN demonstrated our unparalleled access and powerful storytelling when reporter Mayela Sanchez spent a month on Mexico’s southern border interviewing and observing female migrants from Central America who have faced extraordinarily harsh conditions as Portraits of female migrants from the "Los Invisibles" series they seek beter lives for themselves taken by Mayela Sanchez, GPI Mexico and their families. Mayela’s moving photos are remarkable considering that she took the photojournalism training just one month before her reporting trip. Her ten-part “Los Invisibles” series is among the best reporting of 2013! GLOBAL PRESS INSTITUTE is an award-winning, high-impact social venture that uses journalism as a development tool to educate, employ and empower women in developing media markets to produce high-quality local news coverage that ELEVATES GLOBAL AWARENESS AND IGNITES SOCIAL CHANGE. GPI Indian-administered Kashmir News Desk Photo by Mansi Midha, GPI ELEV ATI N G IMPAC T A W ARDS & HONORS GPI continued to receive important recognition for its work in 2013.