RFE/RL, International Visegrad Fund Launch „Stories From New Europe” Series

RFE/RL journalists will travel across the Central and Eastern Europe researching and reporting on the changes impacting people’s daily lives. The project has secured co-financing from International Visegrad Fund.


Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is launching a six-month project supported by the International Visegrad Fund to produce a series of multimedia stories about transformations triggered by European integration and regional cooperation in Central and Eastern European countries. From June to November 2014, RFE/RL journalists will travel across the region researching and reporting on the changes impacting people’s daily lives at the family and community levels. The project has secured co-financing from the International Visegrad Fund’s Small Grant program, which will partially cover this work in the four Visegrad Group members: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

The series of multimedia stories – which will include elements of written, audio, video and photo reporting – are intended to be distributed by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) both on-air and online for the duration of the project and beyond. Upon conclusion of the project, the potential impact of the series will be assessed using focus-group research based on responses from radio listeners and internet users.

RFE/RL broadcasts to 21 countries in 28 languages, from Eastern Europe and the Balkans to Central Asia and the Middle East. With over 400 full-time journalists, 750 freelancers and 19 local bureaus, RFE/RL is one of the most comprehensive news operations in the world (see map). RFE/RL journalists report the news in 21 countries where a free press is banned by the government or not fully established, providing what many people cannot get locally: uncensored news, responsible discussion and open debate (mission statement). RFE/RL journalists are on the front lines in the fight for media freedom in their countries and often put themselves at great risk to do their jobs (click here for more). RFE/RL journalists and experts are a unique source of information about many of the world’s political hotspots (browse RFE/RL’s experts).

The International Visegrad Fund is an inter­na­tional orga­ni­za­tion based in Bratislava founded by the gov­ern­ments of the Visegrad Group (V4) countries – the Czech Republic, Hungary, the Republic of Poland and the Slovak Republic – in Štiřín, Czech Republic, on June 9, 2000. The pur­pose of the fund is to facil­i­tate and pro­mote the devel­op­ment of closer coop­er­a­tion among cit­i­zens and insti­tu­tions in the region as well as between the V4 region and other coun­tries, espe­cially the Western Balkans and coun­tries of the Eastern Partnership. The fund does so through grant sup­port of com­mon cul­tural, sci­en­tific and edu­ca­tional projects, youth exchanges, cross-border projects and tourism pro­mo­tion, and through indi­vid­ual mobil­ity pro­grams.