Lois Kapila of Dublin Inquirer on EU youth journalism project, YoCoJoin
Lois Kapila, deputy editor and reporter at Dublin Inquirer, tells us about the newspaper's involvement in the EU funded YoCoJoin project. This cross sector news journalism project, supported by Creative Europe, aimed to make journalism more inclusive and engaging by bringing young community reporters into local newsrooms.
About YoCoJoin
YoCoJoin was an EU project funded under Creative Europe’s Cross Sector strand News Journalism partnerships from November 2024 to January 2025. The full title of the project was Empowering the Youth: Strengthening Local News Media Services Through the Youth Community Journalism Initiative. The Irish partner in the YoCoJoin project was local independent newspaper, Dublin Inquirer.
The YoCoJoin project aimed to make journalism more inclusive and engaging by bringing young community reporters into local newsrooms. This initiative not only aimed to increase the availability of high-quality, youth-driven journalism but also to encourage young people’s interest in news.
Over two years, media organisations from seven countries - The Netherlands, Malta, Serbia, Hungary, Ireland, Slovenia, and Belgium - mentored young people in journalism, inspired by the approach of project leader Omroep Tilburg. Through training and hands-on experience, YoCoJoin aimed to strengthen the skills of partner organisations and share this model with other local media across Europe, helping create a more sustainable, community-centred news sector.
The project partners were Omroep Tilburg, SideStreet Malta, Media Diversity Institute Western Balkans, Nyugat Media, Dublin Inquirer, Zavod Časoris, and Media Diversity Institute Global.
About Dublin Inquirer
Launched in 2015, Dublin Inquirer is a local, independent newspaper, dedicated to quality public-interest journalism. They publish online weekly and in print monthly. Dublin Inquirer publishes stories that otherwise wouldn’t be covered - housing and homelessness, transport, immigrant life, the environment and climate, planning, arts and culture, and food.
Interview with Lois Kapila, Dublin Inquirer
Lois Kapila is the deputy editor and a reporter at Dublin Inquirer.
What prompted Dublin Inquirer to get involved with the YoCoJoin project?
Part of why we were founded was to give more people who might otherwise miss out a chance to try journalism. We were also already conscious that younger voices tend to be missing from news media. One of our past reporters had taken on a 'kids in the city' beat for a while, and we also ran kid's reviews of kid's books which was fun. So when one of the partners contacted us about the project, it ticked many boxes for us.
How did Dublin Inquirer get involved with this European project?
We actually joined relatively late in the day. The idea was already there, but one of the project partners got in touch and said they had heard we might be a good fit for the team. I'm not sure how they came across us. But, we have over the years managed to meet and learn from lots of independent media across Europe, so I imagine it was through some of those exchanges.
How many young people in Ireland got involved? What workshops or opportunities did they get for being selected?
We started with 30 young people, mostly living in Dublin, but some further afield in Ireland - and from all different backgrounds. We ran a three-month course, with two-hour classes once a week. Those classes covered all kinds of stuff from discussions about 'what is news?', media ethics, interviewing, fact-checking and mobile journalism. We were lucky enough to have some great speakers and trainers as part of it too. We had Patrick Freyne of the Irish Times talk about interviewing; Stephen Bourke, a courts reporter, shared how to go about that; and Glen Mulcahy, the founder of Mojofest, ran sessions on mobile journalism and photography. We tried to have the classes be as interactive and engaging as possible.
Once those three months was up, 8 students went on to have one-to-one mentoring over several months with a journalist from our newsroom to try out reporting, and working on stories, some of which we published. Some students also had an opportunity to go to Brussels to visit the European Parliament, and also - closer to home - to come along to council meetings with us.
What kind of issues were of interest to the young aspiring journalists from Ireland? Was any of their work published here in Ireland?
There was a lot of interest in housing, in immigrant life - two of the core things that we cover - and also about things to do for young people in the city. There was a lot of discussion around how few places there are for young people to just go and socialise, that aren't really expensive. We have published five stories so far, and one social media video story. We do hope to keep up a relationship with those who want to - so there could very well be more in the future.
Was the Dublin Inquirer’s involvement in YoCoJoin a good experience in terms of learning and networking with other European independent news organisations?
It has been great for us. Seeing the work of places like Omreop Tilburg in the Netherlands and also Casoris in Slovenia helps freshen up how we look at things. Many of our partners are facing the same funding challenges, yet share a commitment to opening up journalism to new voices. Talking together about ways to make these initiatives sustainable and testing those is really important to us.
I really want us to be a place where young people - and older people for that - from all backgrounds can try out journalism even if they decide that it isn't for them, and also develop skills that will go to on to serve them either in this field or in other fields. But giving that thoughtful guidance does take time and work from our team - and the big question we are constantly asking ourselves is how can we make sure we can afford to do this, when - if the aim is not to shut people out - it's not something you can really sell as such.