This Mentorship Programme was exactly the opportunity I needed to launch my narrative podcast channel. The chance to work under the guidance of an experienced journalist in audio production, the practical advice, as well as the mental support received over the course of nearly five months, were indispensable in this pioneering endeavor.
Iulia Hau, former mentee (2024 Programme)
I had just finished the first semester of university when I joined the Programme. Although I am studying Journalism, I truly understood what working in the field means only when I began working on my article for the Mentorship Competition. I learned how to approach sources, how to ask questions, and how to tackle issues. I had the chance to meet real journalists and to collaborate with skilled professionals in the field. How else, if not by engaging in such initiatives, can a young person evolve?
Teona Tofan, former mentee (2024 Programme)
The Ratiu Forum Journalism Mentorship Programme
We are excited to announce the launch of the Ratiu Report on Substack! Follow us for the latest insights, reflections, and stories from our mentorship programme, including updates on our projects, events, and community.
Stay connected and explore our content here: Read the Ratiu Report.
1st Place
Mentee: Ana Maria Preda
Mentor: Ovidiu Vanghele
Article: REPORTAJ. „Dacă e să cadă blocul, măcar să fie în casa ei”
2nd Place
Mentee: Mihail Nesteriuc
Mentor: Dan Perry
Article: Moscow Wants Moldova. Europe Must Stop It
3rd Place
Mentee: Dana Coțovanu
Mentor: Luiza Vasiliu
Article: Exploitation and trauma behind video chatting in Romania. To be published
Finalist articles
Mentee: Raluca Cristea
Mentor: Adam Reichard
Article: Drum spre școală cu oprire la pariuri sportive
Mentee: Daniela Vasilache
Mentor: Diana Oncioiu
Article: Poveștile invizibile ale adopției: ce se întâmplă cu copiii odată ajunși în noua familie
Mentee: Iustina Rusu
Mentor: Emilia Șercan
Article: Medical crisis in rural Romania.To be published
Mentee: Miruna Turbatu
Mentor: Luiza Vasiliu
Article: „Simțeam permanent un gol”. Viața cu tulburare de personalitate borderline
Mentee: Ștefania Gheorghe
Mentor: Ovidiu Vanghele
Article: Cutremurul care vine și cum s-a transformat Bucureștiul într-o capcană de beton
Mentee: Luca Murray
Mentor: Dan Perry
Article: Learning to Drive in Romania is Corrupt and Dangerous
- Ștefania Gheorghe (current mentee)
- Raluca Cristea (current mentee)
- Daniela Vasilache (current mentee)
- Andra Mureșan (former mentee)
- Iulia Hau (former mentee)
Selected candidates have the opportunity to pitch their story ideas to a panel of experienced European-based journalists and receive tailored feedback to refine their proposals. Following this, participants incorporate expert recommendations into their research and carry on their work in a professionally structured framework.
This intensive, hands-on experience offers an extraordinary blend of expert guidance, practical skill development, and real-world application, designed to launch participants into successful journalism careers.
Participants must be under 26 years old at the time of applying and have no more than two years of experience working in a newsroom.
ABOUT THE PROGRAMME
For the 2025 Ratiu Forum Journalism Mentorship Programme, we received applicants from Romania and Moldova. 16 participants were selected, each required to formally agree to the programme’s terms and conditions. Successful participants were also required to:
- Pitch an original story idea and improve it according to the received feedback
- Attend all scheduled workshops during the kickoff meeting at the Ratiu Democracy Centre in Turda, Romania.
- Actively and responsibly engage in one-on-one mentorship sessions
- Commit to and conduct thorough fieldwork over the course of 6 months under the guidance of mentors
- Produce an original, well-researched story
The programme will end with the submission and evaluation of the participants’ stories. Only mentees who fulfilled all programme requirements and submitted their final work will receive a certificate of completion.
Over the first four years of the programme, 45 aspiring journalists from Romania were selected to participate, receiving guidance from professional mentors across the region. Each year concluded with an article competition, and the winner was offered a spot at international journalism summer schools in London.
- In the 2021 pilot programme, Mălina Mândruțescu, mentored by Kit Gillet, won with her story, A National Trauma May Win Romania Its First Oscar, which focused on the documentary Collective and detailed the tragic Colectiv nightclub fire in Bucharest.
- The winner of the 2022 programme was Sonia Teodoriu, mentored by Alex Nedea; her work, Coșul pentru un trai decent, is available on the Ratiu Forum website and includes a podcast discussing the minimum monthly income required for a person or family to live a decent life in Romania.
- The 2023 programme was won by Andra Mureșan, who worked on an investigative piece on the Romanian State’s failure to prevent domestic homicides, Femei care au omorât pentru viața lor, under the mentorship of Dan Perry.
- In 2024, the winner was Ingrid Ștefan, who was mentored by Emilia Șercan and documented the lives of Romani beggars in the Netherlands: Poveștile românilor care apelează la mila trecătorilor în Țările de Jos.
WHAT WE OFFER
The mentees accepted in the programme are working on an original story under the guidance of experienced journalists. They enjoy one-on-one mentoring sessions with experienced journalists, pitching events, workshops, professional networking, hands-on learning, and publishing opportunities.
PROGRAMME CALENDAR
- Application call: 16 September – 28 October 2024
- Candidates selection: 28 October – 18 November 2024
- Results announcement: 25 November 2024
- Kickoff meeting in Turda: date TBC January 2025
- Mentoring sessions and fieldwork: January – May 2025
- Status update meeting (Zoom): date TBC April 2025
- Article draft submission: 12 May 2025
- Feedback from mentors: 23 May 2025
- Final submissions: 2 June 2025
- Final results announcement: 27 June 2025
QUESTIONS?
Please contact us: office@ratiuforum.com
Follow us
The Ratiu Forum Journalism Mentorship Programme aims to stimulate the development of outstanding reporting skills among early-career journalists from Romania and the region (Moldova, Bulgaria, Hungary, Ukraine) through individual guidance and strategic mentorship sessions. The programme supports the production of high-quality journalistic content and facilitates publishing in respected media outlets.
Funding for this project has been generously provided by The Ratiu Family Charitable Foundation and The Petrichor Endowment, established within the Ratiu Foundation.
THE MENTORS
Alison Mutler
Alison Mutler first began her career working with journalists covering communist Romania after she graduated Romanian literature and language at London University in 1987.Her proper debut came during the 1989 anti-communist revolution when she worked for Britain’s ITN television channel on the ground in Romania. She moved to Romania to work full-time as a journalist after the revolution and freelanced for the Daily Telegraph, CNN and the BBC et alia. She then spent 25 years as chief correspondent for The Associated Press, reporting on Romania, Moldova and occasionally Bulgaria. Since 2019, she has been with Universul.net and its director since 2021. She occasionally collaborates with Radio Free Europe, the Financial Times, Times Radio and others. Her book ‘Plecata la Revolutie’ (Gone to a Revolution) was published in 2007.
Diana Oncioiu, currently a reporter working for the alternative publication Dela0, is also a member of the Să Fie Lumină project that in 2019 published the first investigations on the sexual abuses committed by a local bishop and a monk against high school students. In June 2024, both of them were sentenced to 8 and 15 years in prison for rape and sexual assault. The decision is not final. She has a background in broadcasting, having worked for five years for Realitatea TV and Digi24. She covers mainly social topics – domestic violence, education, social assistance, extreme poverty, and social exclusion – and is the author of a series of in-depth reportages covering topics like the social reintegration of former inmates, life in the undergrounds of the Bucharest neighbourhood Ferentari, human trafficking and the prosecution of sexual crimes against child victims. She has studied political science at the University of Bucharest and has a MA in Holocaust and genocide studies from the University of Amsterdam. Diana Oncioiu is the 2020 recipient of the Ion Ratiu Journalism Award.
Dan Perry
Veteran global correspondent Dan Perry is the former chief editor of Associated Press for Europe and Africa (from London) and for Middle East (from Cairo). He has also served as AP’s bureau chief in the Caribbean (from Puerto Rico) and the chairman of the Foreign Press Association for Israel and Palestine. He is currently a world affairs columnist for Newsweek and The Forward and publishes a well-read newsletter on Substack, Ask Questions Later. He is also widely published in MediaIte, Jerusalem Post, CNN, The Hill, The Atlantic Council and Romania’s Universul and other publications, and is a television commentator, He led projects that have won numerous prizes (including the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for an investigative all-format series on Yemen). With his background in technology and entrepreneurship as well, Dan has repeatedly served as a delegate at the World Economic Forum in Davos and various other global leadership conferences such as the Young Presidents Organization Geopolitics Summit, hosting panels with political and business leaders. His array of interview subjects range from John McCain, Tony Blair, Mikhail Gorbachev and Benjamin Netanyahu to Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales and U2 frontman Bono. He started his journalism career in video production and photography (some perhaps pixelated images available on Instagram @danperry63).
Adam Reichardt
Adam Reichardt is the Editor-in-Chief of the New Eastern Europe magazine based in Poland. Published since 2011, the magazine is one of the leading publications dedicated to the region of Central and Eastern Europe. He is also the co-host of the “Talk Eastern Europe” podcast – the official podcast of New Eastern Europe. Adam has also previously worked as the Director of the Warsaw Euro-Atlantic Summer Academy (WEASA) which is organized annually at the College of Europe in Natolin (Warsaw) and was a member of the executive team of the Three Ukrainian Revolutions project run by the College of Europe. Adam was short-listed for the European Press Prize in the category of “Editing” for his work on New Eastern Europe and was named to the “New Europe 100” list of the region’s top innovators. In 2019 he was a Transatlantic Media Fellow with the Heinrich Boell Foundation. In addition to his activities at NEE, Adam also leads workshops on journalism, communications, and social media for students during international academies and seminars in Poland and abroad. Before establishing New Eastern Europe, Adam spent eight years in public policy in Washington DC, and a large portion of his studies in Krakow, Poland, where he now permanently resides. Adam has an MA in Public Administration in Public and Nonprofit Management from the George Mason University in Fairfax Virginia USA.
Emilia Șercan
Emilia Șercan is a Lecturer at the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences, University of Bucharest, PhD in Communication sciences, and an investigative journalist with over 25 years of experience. As an investigative journalist, she has exposed dozens of plagiarism cases in the doctoral theses of prominent Romanian politicians and public figures, investigations that led to profound reforms in doctoral studies. Her investigative work, turned into a public mission, unveiled a vast, intricate mechanism of trading political power and influence through plagiarism and academic fraud. Șercan has received several fellowships, both as a professor and a journalist, scholarship holder of the U.S. Department of State at the University of Ohio (2016), French State Scholarship at Stendhal University Grenoble 3 (2012 – 2013), and Freedom House Scholarship in the USA (2004). Over the years, has won several professional and academic awards, such as Journalist of the Year (2016), Freedom of Expression Award (2016), “Ion Rațiu” Journalism Award (2016), Bologna Professor of the Year (2017), “Nicolae Iorga” Award from the Romanian Society of Historical Sciences (2018), European Network for Academic Integrity Award (2019), Social Dialogue Group Award (2020), and Timișoara Society Award (2023). She published her doctoral thesis – defended in 2013 at the University of Bucharest – under the title The Cult of Secrecy. Mechanisms of Censorship in the Communist Press (Polirom Publishing House, Iași). Both academic and journalistic interest in the field of integrity has materialized in two books, The Doctorate Factory or How the Foundations of a Nation Are Undermined (Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 2017), and The Ponta Case. Reconstructing the Most Infamous Plagiarism in Romanian History (Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 2022).
Nick Thorpe
Nick Thorpe is a writer, filmmaker and award-winning BBC journalist, specialising in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, born in England in 1960. He studied Modern Languages at the Universities of Reading (UK), Dakar (Senegal) and Freiburg (Germany), graduating in 1982. He has lived in Budapest since 1986 and is married with 5 sons. He reported on the fall of Communism throughout Eastern Europe and the break-up of Yugoslavia for the BBC, Independent, Observer, and Guardian newspapers, including the wars in Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia. He has been a Central Europe Correspondent for the BBC since 1996. With BBC colleagues, he won a Peabody award for his coverage of the Refugee crisis in 2015, and a Lovie award for best internet reporting in 2018.
Ovidiu Vanghele
Ovidiu Vanghele began his journalism career in 2002, when he was hired by Mediafax news agency at the end of his first year at university. He developed a strong interest in investigative journalism, rising through the ranks from reporter to editor, special reporter, and senior reporter. After a decade at Mediafax, Ovidiu joined the Pro TV news team, where he contributed to the network’s flagship show, România, te iubesc! In 2013, he left mainstream media to establish the Center for Investigative Media (CIM), an NGO he continues to lead. Ovidiu has uncovered numerous high-profile investigations, revealing the misuse, theft, and illegal expenditure of millions of euros. His most notable work has exposed abuses in mental health centers, as well as various corruption, organized crime, and money laundering schemes. In 2022, Ovidiu, alongside his colleague Bianca Albu (formerly of Buletin de București and Rise Project), investigated a series of state-funded care homes for vulnerable people, run by associates of Gabriela Firea, former mayor of Bucharest and a leading figure in the Social Democratic Party. The appalling conditions uncovered in these facilities sent shockwaves through the country and significantly diminished Firea’s political standing. In 2023, Ovidiu partnered with Recorder to reveal a major corruption and money laundering scheme involving Vlad Oprea, the influential mayor of Sinaia and a prominent member of the National Liberal Party. Ovidiu also taught investigative journalism at the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences at the University of Bucharest from 2016 to 2023. Since 2017, he has co-directed the Let There Be Light (Să Fie Lumină) project with Vlad Stoicescu. Through this initiative, he published the first-ever investigation that led to the prosecution of an Orthodox bishop for the rape and sexual abuse of seminary boys. Former Bishop Onila was sentenced to eight years in prison, with the appeal pending. Ovidiu’s investigative work has earned numerous national and international awards. His reporting has been featured by prominent international media outlets, including Associated Press, Reuters, NPR, The Guardian, ARTE, and Le Monde, among others.
Luiza Vasiliu
Luiza Vasiliu, 40 yo, Romania, studied literature and became a journalist by contagion. In 2016 she co-founded Scena9, a platform for the young generation of artists and thinkers, where she edited over 1000 pieces. In the meantime, she discovered the thrill of investigative journalism. She published a series about one of the most famous Romanian doctors, who performed unauthorized experimental procedures which killed children or left them crippled. This investigation led to the doctor’s arrest and was a finalist for the European Science Writer of The Year Award. She wrote about astrophysicists studying micro black holes, a teacher chastised for showing her students a movie about Verlaine and Rimbaud, a communism dissident setting Stalin’s statue on fire. Her latest work involves the Tate brothers and their ties to Romanian organized crime. Areas of interest: human rights, gender based violence, human trafficking.
THE MENTEES
Coțovanu Dana
Dobrea Melisa
Lungu Delia
Murray Luca
Nesteriuc Mihail
Petre Andrei
Stugaru Teodora
Raluca Maria Cristea is a Journalism graduate from the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences and a master’s student in Thematic Journalism. She is a reporter for Școala9, where she combines storytelling with rigorous analysis, bringing to the forefront stories about artificial intelligence, refugees, and the education system in disadvantaged areas. She is also a copywriter for a national radio station and a travel enthusiast, always in search of new perspectives.
Ștefania Gheorghe is a final-year Journalism student and has been working at HotNews for almost a year, where she covers social and political topics. In her free time, she is a public speaking and civic education trainer for high school students.
Ana Maria Preda decided to pursue a career in journalism because she was never content with the answer “that is just how it is”. She holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the University of Bucharest, following earlier studies in Sociology and Human Resources at Transilvania University of Brașov. Ana Maria began her journey in radio and has collaborated with television stations and online publications, always driven by the same deep curiosity.
Iustina Rusu graduated from the Faculty of Journalism, from Iași, and is a student at a master’s degree in Public Policy in the European Union in Bucharest. She is a reporter at the local news website B365 in Bucharest. She writes about what interests people every day, from the decisions of city halls to the troubles of people in any neighborhood. She believes that small events matter, that’s why she looks more closely at what others ignore.
Miruna Turbatu is a Journalism Student in Iaşi. Since this spring, she works as a correspondent photojournalist in Iaşi for the independent press photography agency Inquam Photos. To her, journalism is truly a mission. The subject she is most interested in at the moment is destigmatizing mental health and she has dedicated a good amount of time to learning how to cover this topic. She also has a passion for photoreporting in conflict zones.
