Journalist Federica Tourn was the first winner of the Piazza Grande Award, which was
launched in 2019 by the International association of Religion Journalists (IARJ) and the
Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose Giovanni XXIII (FSCIRE) to encourage best practices in
journalism and honor the work of journalists covering religion and spirituality.
In this interview by Jelena Jorgačević she tell us how she started reporting on religion and what it means to be a female journalist covering religion.

ALERT for journalists across Europe and around the Mediterranean basin that the deadline for the second Piazza Grande Religion Journalism Award is now extended to May 15, 2023. This column also has links to the entry page, contest details and answers to frequently asked questions.

Applications are open for the second edition of the Piazza Grande Religion Journalism Award. Journalists covering religion, faith and spirituality in both mainstream and confessional media – newspapers, magazines or news websites – that publish regularly in Europe, including Iceland and Russia, and the countries surrounding the Mediterranean basin are invited to submit their works by April 15, 2023.

The International Association of Religion Journalists (IARJ) is launching its third series of online global dialogues, bringing together reporters from different regions of the world. The 2023 theme will be religious extremism in their countries.

Canadian IARJ member John Longhurst writes about the importance of including religious leaders in global gatherings to discuss our collective future.

Our IARJ colleagues are active in many media networks around the world, including the Religion & Media Interest Group of the Association of Educators of Journalism and Mass Communication. The Winter 2022-23 issue of that group’s Religion & Media UPDATE includes stories about two of our colleagues.

IARJ board member Pedro Brieger writes about the evolving relationship between the papacy and Latin America. His column—posted in Spanish and English—begins: “La historia latinoamericana y caribeña desde la conquista española estuvo atravesada por la influencia de la espada y la cruz.”

Larbi Megari, an Algerian journalist, scholar and leader in groundbreaking efforts to lift up international reporting on religion, will be inducted into the International Association of Religion Journalists Hall of Fame in March 2022.

In this column in our “News and Views” series, IARJ board member Prince Charles Dickson describes the complex structure of religion and politics in Nigeria.

In our fifth global discussion about religion and politics, IARJ members from North America discuss common misconceptions about the complex influence of religion in shaping community life and national policies.