ACME announces new reporting grants for Ugandan media institutions

African Centre for Media Excellence (ACME) with pleasure invites applications for a new institutional grants competition under its Enhanced Media Reporting for Transparency and Accountability programme. The programme funded by the Democratic Governance Facility (DGF), provides up to USHS 6,000,000 to media outlets or newsroom teams across Uganda for investigative journalism projects and development of content that set standards for journalistic excellence and expands the range and depth of coverage of public affairs.

The goal is to help fill the widening gap that has emerged as resource-constrained media reduce their support for expensive and time-consuming investigative projects. The programme rewards quality journalism and aims to advance a new and distinct agenda for public affairs reporting by providing funding to select innovative and enterprising projects with high impact potential.

Two grants will be issued this year to media houses or newsroom teams for reporting on one of the following 12 priority areas of the Enhanced Media Reporting for Transparency and Accountability programme:

All projects must provide in-depth information of relevance beyond the limitations of daily news cycles. They may be one-off publications or entire series, which must be narrative, exploratory, explanatory and investigative in nature.

All applications will be reviewed by a jury, which rates and ranks the projects according to the following criteria (explained in details below):

• Editorial approach
• National impact
• Innovation
• Packaging, publication and delivery strategy
• Impact (goal)

Successful applicants must also have:

• a proven commitment to professional journalistic standards;
• a dedication to ethical practices and editorial independence;
• provided programmes for professional development and recognition of excellence of their staff;
• evidence of sustained in-depth and enterprising reporting on public affairs;
• provided the public with forums for quality discussions of topics of significant national importance; and
• shown interest in innovative and new media tools in their work.

Key things to keep in mind

• The deadline for application for December intake is 9 December 2016
• Deadline for February 2017 intake is 10 February 2017
• Deadline for July 17 intake is 7 July 2017

To apply for the institutional grants, download and fill out this form in full. 

For inquiries, call Paul Kimumwe on 0712 666 933 or email: pkimumwe@acme-ug.org