Author: andreas.lamm

Silvia Chocarro is the Head of Protection at ARTICLE 19, a global organisation promoting freedom of expression worldwide. She sits on the IFEX Council and is a member of the Centre for Freedom of Media, University of Sheffield. In her twenty-year career, she has worked for media development groups and intergovernmental organisations as well as a journalist for media outlets. She holds a PhD in Journalism from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain; her dissertation focused on the role of the UN in journalists’ safety. She is the author of several reports on the safety of journalists and gender and media.

Twitter: @silviachocarro

Attila Mong is a Hungarian freelance journalist based in Berlin. He works as the Europe representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Mong is also an innovation consultant for the DW Akademie and a board member for Hungarian investigative journalism outlet, Átlátszó. He was John S. Knight Journalism fellow (2013) and Hoover Institution research fellow (2011) at Stanford University. He is the author of several books and recipient of the 2004 Pulitzer Memorial Prize for Best Investigative Journalism and the 2003 Soma Investigative Journalism Prize.

Twitter: @attilamong

Neus Vidal is a journalist and political scientist. She is currently in charge of monitoring violations of press freedom at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom. She is also a Journalism Lecturer at the Open University of Catalonia and pursuing a PhD in Politics at Birkbeck College – University of London, focusing on transparency policies and access to information. Previously, she was a freelance reporter at El País and worked for several outlets in the United Kingdom and in Spain. Neus holds a double degree in Journalism and Political Science (Pompeu Fabra University Barcelona) and an Investigative Journalism master’s degree (City, University of London). She has been awarded with several grants such as the European Collaborative Journalism Programme 2021, Re:constitution fellowship 2019, and La Caixa Excellence fellowship 2014.

Twitter: @neusvidal

Max von Abendroth is the Executive Director of Dafne – Donors and Foundations Networks in Europe, soon converging with EFC to become Philea, representing 10.000 public benefit foundations across Europe. Philea will host the Journalism Funders Forum. Max developed the interest representation of Europe’s philanthropy sector vis-à-vis the EU institutions to further strengthen the operating environment for donors and foundations across Europe. He is the initiator of PEX, a European collaboration network of more than 70 philanthropy infrastructure organisations. In 2020 he started the Philanthropy Coalition for Climate and co-created the International Philanthropy Commitment on Climate Change.

Before joining Dafne, Max set up and ran the European Magazine Media Association, EMMA, representing 15.000 press publishers vis-à-vis the EU institutions. He is also the founder of the Future Media Lab. (2012-2017), an innovative European advocacy platform for media, technology, journalism, academia and politicians.

Max studied Economics and Business Administration at the Witten/Herdecke University in Germany.

Twitter: @bxlmax

Stefano Vergine is an Italian investigative journalist focusing on economics and foreign affairs. He mainly writes for Il Fatto Quotidiano. His works are published also by other media outlets such as RAI, Euobserver.com, RSI, BBC. The investigation “Chinese Underworld” has been conducted by Info.Libre, Il Fatto Quotidiano and Info.Nodes. The video has been made by Visionair Prod.

Twitter: @StefanoVergine

Giacomo Zandonini is a Swiss-Italian journalist whose work explores mobility, identities, and European policies in the Mediterranean and West Africa. He contributed to investigations on human rights violations, surveillance programmes, corruption and diversion of public funds. He’s a member of Fada Collective and takes part in Lighthouse Reports’ migration and surveillance newsrooms.

Twitter: @giacomo_zando

Jelena Prtoric is a freelance journalist who has reported for a wide variety of publications in English, French, Italian, and her native Croatian. Her work has focused on gender and human rights, migration, the environment/climate, culture and social movements, through an investigative and (often) cross-border lens. As of 2020, Jelena has been the Arena Climate Network coordinator for Arena for Journalism in Europe, a non-profit organisation. She is also an occasional podcaster and translator of graphic novels. In 2022, Jelena is a Bertha Challenge Fellow and is working on in-depth research into the quality of water in Europe, focusing on agricultural pollution of water bodies.

Saranda Ramaj has been working at newspaper Koha Ditore since 2013. Her coverage includes public procurement, the justice system, and corruption in healthcare. Saranda systematically develops complex research in these fields unveiling irregularities, corruption and organised crime. With her stories, she also has prevented the signing of illegal tenders worth millions which were mainly policy-related businesses. In her nine years as a journalist, she has been awarded 14 prizes for investigative journalism.

Twitter: @saranda_ramaj

Pia Lindholm works as a Deputy Head of Unit for Civil Justice in Directorate-General Justice and Consumers of the European Commission. She studied law in Helsinki and London and economics in Brussels and trained as a judge in Finland. She joined the Commission in 1995 from the Finnish Ministry of Justice and started her career in the Commission’s Legal Service. She has worked in a number of different fields in the Commission before joining the Civil Justice Unit in 2017. She has followed the situation concerning SLAPP in the EU since 2018. She is currently working on the Commission’s SLAPP initiative.