Building bridges for digital rights: The Civic Journalism Coalition

Strengthening our digital rights through engaged journalism

In an era of widespread government surveillance, algorithmic discrimination, and shrinking civic space, the role of investigative journalism in shedding light on these practices and ensuring accountability has never been more critical. Engaged and brave journalism outlets constantly expose human rights violations linked to AI, spyware, and state surveillance, while at the same time being targeted themselves for their watchdog role. Civil society organisations (CSOs) also play a huge role in denouncing democratic backsliding while providing legal expertise, policy insights, and advocacy networks to amplify investigative findings and push for systemic change.

However, despite their shared goals, many collaborations between investigative outlets and CSOs are ad hoc, project-based for particular topics, and limited by short-term funding. This leads to missed opportunities for long-term investigations, coordinated advocacy and strategic litigation, all of which could be crucial to achieving systemic change. To address this challenge, and thanks to funding from Allianz Foundation’s Fixing what’s broken call, EDRi, EDRi member European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL), and Lighthouse Reports have established the Civic Journalism Coalition. This coalition does not aim to blur the lines between journalism and advocacy, but rather to create a structured, long-term space where journalists and digital rights defenders can share knowledge, coordinate efforts, and strengthen each other’s work.

A platform to amplify, coordinate and multiply results

The three pillars of the coalition’s work are:

• Learning – Hosting workshops and training sessions to exchange knowledge, tools, and strategies between journalists and CSOs. Topics include investigative techniques, access to information laws, and strategies to counter surveillance.
• Investigations – Providing seed funding for cross-sector collaborations that focus on digital rights violations, state and corporate surveillance, and threats to media freedom.
• Advocacy – Coordinating efforts to ensure investigative findings have a lasting impact by influencing EU policies and public debates.

Crucially, each partner maintains their distinct role in this coalition: journalists report, CSOs advocate. Journalists are not asked to campaign for policy change, and CSOs are not expected to conduct on-the-ground investigations. Instead, the coalition amplifies and multiplies impact by ensuring that investigative findings are not lost in the news cycle, but are strategically used to drive accountability.

The coalition kicked off in Berlin with a geographically representative group of investigative journalists and civil society experts. Participants included investigative outlets such as Lighthouse Reports, IRPi Media, BIRN, and Re:Baltica, alongside CSOs like Statewatch, AlgorithmWatch, Amnesty International, Corporate Europe Observatory, European Partnership for Democracy, and the European Center for Press and Media Freedom. Discussions focused on accessing EU documents, navigating new policy shifts on digital surveillance, and fostering cross-border investigative collaborations.

One example of the hands-on work done in the workshop was the “investigations market”, where journalists and CSOs pitched ideas for joint investigations on digital rights abuses, creating real opportunities for sustainable partnerships between them.

Upcoming events and opportunities for engagement

The coalition is open for any interested CSO or journalistic outlet to join. We will continue our work with a series of events and funding opportunities:

• Funding for collaborative investigations (Deadline to apply: 17 April) – A grant programme launched on 25 March, providing €3,000 to €8,000 for 3-7 investigations focused on digital rights violations. It is open to any interested outlets or CSOs.
• International Journalism Festival (Perugia, 9–13 April) – The coalition members will be there. In a side event co-organised by Amnesty Tech, ECNL and EDRi we will explore how investigative journalism can support digital rights advocacy without compromising journalistic independence.
• Data Harvest (Mechelen, 22–25 May) – Coordination among coalition members attending the event to highlight key investigations.
• Next Workshop (April–May 2024) – An online session co-created with coalition members, will be focused on a particular issue – the use of spyware and surveillance tools against journalists in Europe.

How can you join?

At a time when governments and private entities increasingly use surveillance technologies to affect or restrict fundamental rights, journalists and CSOs must work together to expose abuses, inform the public, and push for accountability and systemic change. The Civic Journalism Coalition aims to create a space for building sustainable collaborations that can strengthen digital rights across Europe.

If you or your organisation are interested in joining future workshops or applying for investigative funding, please reach out to EDRi () or follow our updates.