Dataharvest 2025 - the European Investigative Journalism Conference

As the gap between journalists and the public continues to grow, how can investigative newsrooms convince people that they still matter? “Impact journalism” may be one solution.
For six months, Disclose and Rembobine, two independent news organisations from France, have been collecting best practices from newsrooms around the world to monitor, assess and evaluate the echoes of their investigations. Their brand new guide to impact journalism, based on 30 interviews with researchers, editors and impact producers, will be published at Dataharvest.
Impact provides not only room for hope, but also a promising approach to increasing reader loyalty and foundation support.

This is probably one the most common nightmares for any journalist: you’ve been working for months on an ambitious investigation and, once published, it results in… nothing. To mitigate this, it’s time to develop effective impact strategies, tailored to your newsroom and your resources. During this participatory workshop, inspired by popular education techniques, we will collectively build a realistic impact plan for your next investigation. Whether it involves partnering with stakeholders, getting support from activists or building new editorial formats, we’ll look at several techniques for maximising the reach of your revelations and ensuring they produce impact in the real world.

Funding journalism is a recurring issue. In recent years, we’ve focused a lot on the ’how’: How to phrase an application, how to develop a realistic budget, how to reach out to potential funders. And we’ll continue with that, of course: but the question of how to fund public interest journalism has, if possible, become even more urgent. But we also need a deeper understanding, a shared terminology and fora to discuss these questions.
Brigitte Alfter will talk about the freshly released Arena Paper on fundraising. She is also the author of a GFMD paper on public funding to journalists and has been a speaker at ’Saving Journalism’ events at Columbia University, an annual conference on a wide variety of funding sources and funding models for journalism in our time.
The session will be followed by a fundraising café with advice on your project or for your organisation.

With traditional revenue streams under strain, independent media outlets are turning to innovative models that combine grants, memberships, subscriptions, events, and more. But how does this approach work in practice? What challenges come with balancing diverse income sources?
This session explores the ethics, sustainability, and practicalities of mixed funding. How can outlets develop a long-term strategy while navigating financial and ethical dilemmas? Join us to discuss the opportunities and pitfalls of funding independent journalism in today’s landscape.