Last pic from #ijf26: group pic along with colleagues working as part of the project "Media Organisations for Stronger Transnational Journalism" - https://www.balcanicaucaso.org/en/projects/most/

EU support to independent journalism takes many forms. It is fragmented, surely, but the more you're familiar with the dynamics, the more you see how it eventually enables an ecosystem of complementary initiatives that lets journalists do their own thing, but also pushes them to collaborate across borders.

As I'm involved in an EU-funded initiative creating new training and upskilling modules for data journalism, we're busy doing some preliminary desk research on currently available programmes across Europe. We're looking into both higher education / university programmes, and other professional trainings. If you have suggestions about such initiatives in particular outside big institutions, please throw a link my way! Thanks!

And if you're at #ijf26, see you there and talk #DataJournalism

Youth activists in #Russia were condemned to between 6 and 12 years of prison for peaceful protests.

https://zona.media/article/2026/04/07/spring

Terrible.

Official list of their crimes:

Organizing and participating in an extremist community; participating in the activities of a public association that infringes on the rights of citizens; inciting mass unrest; calling for activities against state security; disseminating "fakes" about the army; disseminating disrespectful information about military glory days

Increased blocking of Telegram in Russia reduced by 41% the views of pro-Kremlin channels, but only by 16.5% for opposition/independent channels.

https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/03/27/provlastnye-kanaly-poteriali-na-blokirovkakh-telegram-41-auditorii #Russia #Telegram