Media Innovator’s Mentorship
Connect with industry leaders and engage in peer-to-peer learning
The Media Innovator’s Mentorship matches journalists and media innovators to share expertise and advice on anything from media management and editorial to audience engagement and product development.
Sign up for the Media Innovator’s Mentorship today!
IPI’s Media Innovator’s Mentorship Programme creates space for sharing expertise, experience and lessons. IPI will match willing experts and media partners with individuals or newsrooms interested in mentorship. Mentorship is open to mid-career and senior journalists and other media practitioners.
For applicants (mentees)
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Take ownership and be proactive! You play a crucial role in defining its objectives and potential outcomes. Suggest the mentoring format and type, and agree upon the mentorship duration and frequency. Aim at leading the process and making the most of it!
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Dig into the problem you want to solve! In order to make the mentoring process effective, you should identify the question or challenge you are seeking assistance with.
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Recognize advantages and limits of mentorship! Remember that mentorship is there to guide you, not to tackle all the challenges you face or provide ready-made solutions. Although mentors provide coaching and guidance, it is eventually up to you how you deploy the insights gained into your work.
For mentors
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Listen to and determine the needs of the mentee. Once an understanding of the scope of the question or challenge is clear, present personal experience and guide the mentee along a viable path to approach their challenge. Useful cues include reference to similar experiences in your newsroom and what steps you took to solve it.
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Together with mentees, build a trusted relationship in which questions and advice are encouraged to be provided in both directions.
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Help the mentee find their own solutions. Remember you are there to guide the mentee, not to provide ready-made solutions or impose your opinions on them. Encourage the mentee to find out what works best for them.
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Availability: around 2-3 hours over a 3 month period.
For Mentors and Applicants
Who: Partnerships can be between newsrooms as a whole or between individuals, taking place digitally.
Setup: IPI’s innovation team will set up the initial call, then leave the participants to take it from there depending on interest and availability.
Mutual agreement: All decisions on the format and type of mentorship will be based on mutual agreement.
Clear outcomes: Before starting the mentoring process, we recommend that mentees and mentors agree upon what the primary focal points are by determining objectives and desired outcomes of the mentorship.
Time commitment: at least 2-3 hours over a 3 month period.
Productivity: We recommend participants come to meetings with questions and considerations prepared, in order to ensure everyone’s time is spent productively.
Confidentiality: At the beginning of the process, mentees and mentors should agree on whether they wish to keep the process confidential. Participants are encouraged to share their experiences and key learning with a larger audience.
Compensation: there will be no compensation for mentors nor fees for participants.
Questions? Contact us here: [email protected]
Our Mentors
Motunrayo is a journalist, communications expert, journalism and development innovator and ED/CEO of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism, Lagos. She can mentor on local journalism development strategies, media management and journalism innovations.
Kevin is passionate about delivering great digital products for media companies and have done so for the BBC, The Guardian, Gannett and US public media. He will mentor you on product development and management, analytics, audience development including social media and newsletters, digital transformation and innovation strategy.
Walid is an award-winning journalist with expertise in television, radio, print and online media. He can mentor on editorial guidelines, ethics of journalism, communication strategies, media crisis management and other media and communication related fields.
Patrick is a newsroom executive with a decade of experience leading digital transformation in multilingual newsrooms that serve some of the world’s most challenging and exciting markets. He can mentor on editorial strategy, product thinking, change management, collaborative projects and censorship circumvention.
Nikola is the Programme Director at the Belgrade-based think tank Centre for Contemporary Politics and Executive Editor at European Western Balkans, English-language media specialized in EU enlargement in the Western Balkans. He can mentor on EU enlargement, international affairs, and Serbia-Kosovo dispute.
Nicolas can mentor on media management, subscription products, monetizing events, and more. He managed Project Syndicate’s growth over the past 25 years. During that time, he has expanded its grant portfolio immensely and diversified its revenues with reader subscriptions, an events business, the recent launch of the PS Quarterly magazine and the Project Syndicate Friends Fund.
Lenora covers Europe out of Berlin for The Christian Science Monitor. Prior to that, she covered China for nearly a decade, and authored the award-winning HarperCollins book Little Soldiers, about education in China. A Texas native who’s lived all over the world, she loves barbecue, spicy Sichuan food and bratwurst equally well.
As the Director of Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives, Clara Dominguez develops partnerships with other organizations to build relationships and projects on journalism and audience development that further the vision and mission of Voice of America. Clara can provide mentorship on newsroom leadership, best editorial practices, resource management, media innovation, and marketing and outreach.
Divine boasts of over a decade of experience as a news reporter, editor and newsroom manager. He can provide mentorship on building data teams in small newsrooms, setting up relevant tech stacks, building audience engagement funnels and developing content plans for hyperlocal newsrooms, with affiliations at Stanford and the Craig Newmark School of Journalism.
With a background in Sociology, Economics, and Digital Marketing, Marta spent almost a decade reporting on environmental issues in Italian legacy media. She now serves as Editor-in-Chief at the award-winning RADAR Magazine. Marta can mentor on nurturing startups, diversifying revenue streams, and practicing solutions journalism
Aaron is a leader in multi-platform storytelling. He can mentor on investigative journalism, story framing, interview prep, accessing public records, mentorship, and straight up editing. Two-time Peabody Award winner and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Aaron is an elite manager across different mediums and newsrooms, ensuring that stories land with maximum velocity.
Richard Hoechner is co-founder and head of community of Republik, an ad-free, independent and member-funded digital magazine from Zürich, Switzerland. Richard has a background in innovation, consulting, digital strategies and journalism, and is happy to mentor on topics like community building, membership models, audience engagement and reader revenue/crowdfunding.
Ivana is an award-winning investigative reporter and fact-checker based in Belgrade. Currently, she works as an editor at BIRN’s Balkan Insight and a fact-checker at The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Ivana can mentor you on fact-checking, digital security, and investigative reporting.
Jennifer Karchmer is an experienced journalist and press freedom advocate for 25+ years with stints at CNN and the Associated Press and as a volunteer correspondent with Reporters Sans Frontières with expertise in writing long-form and investigative articles. She can support mentees with their writing, editing, interviews, source development and ethical questions that arise during their reporting.
Marcela Kunova is the editor at Journalism.co.uk, the leading B2B publication covering media news, providing training courses and advertising journalism jobs. She can mentor on design thinking, user-first models and questions around leading change in the newsroom.
Bea is a journalist specialized in content creation, social media and community engagement. She can mentor on membership strategies and the ways to involve communities in editorial processes.
As director of independent media programmes at IPI, Timothy Large oversees the Investigative Journalism for Europe (IJ4EU) fund. He is a former Reuters correspondent, editor-in-chief of the Thomson Reuters Foundation and an editor at BIRN.Timothy can mentor on cross-border collaboration, newsroom management, journalistic ethics and pitching stories and projects.
Leif has more than 40 years of media experience as a journalist, editor, head of development, editor in chief and CEO for the Danish National Public Service broadcaster. Since 2018 he has been an independent consultant, media adviser, and senior manager at the Nordic Journalist Centre. He can provide mentorship related to a broad range of topics from investigative journalism to top media management.
Andrew’s main areas of expertise for mentorship include community engagement and product management. He has written for The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and The Times of London, among many others and led teams at Mozilla, Vox Media, HuffPost and at a Spanish editorial startup.
Astrid is Editor in Chief of XING, the largest jobs network for professionals in German speaking countries. She offers mentoring on self-)leadership, handling mental load, how to stand out as an introvert/female in a men’s world, how to design your own (working) culture, scaling organizations, innovation and change management. Astrid is a longtime business journalist and newsroom leader and founder of the non profit Dverse Media.
Stavros is a reporter for Solomon, an Athens-based investigative outlet. He is happy to discuss the ethics and challenges of journalism, reporting on migration, and protecting mental health for journalists.
Javier is a multimedia journalist with a deep understanding of visual storytelling spanning video, audio and data visualization. He has developed numerous digital media productions, including documentaries, podcast series and awareness-raising campaigns for social media. Javier can mentor on storytelling techniques to engage and grow your audience.
Elisangela is a London-based Brazilian journalist, specialising in environment and human rights issues. She is also a fellow with the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforests Investigations Network. She can mentor on investigative reporting, supply chains tracking, and climate journalism.
Fabienne can offer mentorship on innovative challenges like strategic planning and management, product development, change management, digital storytelling formats, data journalism and design thinking. She has worked with international startups and legacy media organizations alike to create strategies, develop new products and transform cultures.
Pawel is a former editor-in-chief, senior editor and journalist at Polish publishing houses, including Agora, Infor Biznes and Polska Press Group. He can mentor on digital subscriptions, digital marketing, innovation in journalism and editing, strategy digital development, monetisation.
Lena Beate has 10 years experience in product management and editorial. She has hands-on experience with the startup methodology Game plan, design sprint, management of product and development teams, user research, process management methods and the use of AI to meet accessibility requirements in news products.
During his 20-year-long career, Andras worked at the leading Hungarian news site Origo, the BBC World Service and The Washington Post. He has contributed to several international reporting projects, including the Panama Papers and the Pegasus Project. He will mentor you on crowdfunding and membership models, and managing investigative reporting projects.
Albert is a multi-awarding Malawian journalist with 10 years newsroom experience. Albert is based in the Centre of African Studies at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom where he conducts research in politics and journalism. He is interested in mentoring journalists who specialize in feature writing, investigative journalism, citizen journalism and management of community radios.
Eva is a German-American journalist. She can mentor on starting a podcast, audience research and writing newsletters. Her work has appeared in major publications in both English and German, including Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung and The International Herald Tribune.
Daryna is the CEO of the Kyiv Independent. Daryna has 10 years experience as a media manager, trainer and media consultant. Daryna can offer mentorship on HR (leadership, evaluation systems – OKR/KPI, feedback system etc.), revenue diversification and membership building.
Florian is founder and editor-in-chief of DOSSIER, an Austrian non-profit-newsroom focused on investigative and data-driven-journalism. Florian can mentor on entrepreneurial journalism and business models for non-profits, such a building a membership model.
David is a journalist, podcaster, newsletter writer and subscription specialist at the Slovak daily SME.sk. He helps out podcasters, newsrooms and creators with monetisation, digital strategy and audience growth.
