AFP

📰 Press Release - lensEU: Major European Newsrooms Team Up to Bring EU Affairs Home A new weekly podcast and newsletter, produced in five languages, aims to make European politics feel relevant to the people it actually affects. EU decisions shape energy bills, data rights, housing markets and election integrity across the continent. Yet for most Europeans, Brussels might as well be another world. lensEU - the Localised European News Service - was built on a simple conviction: people engage with politics when they can follow it in their own language.   Launched in April, lensEU will deliver a 30-minute podcast every Tuesday starting today, as well as a newsletter every Friday, both produced in English and translated into Polish, Latvian, German and Croatian. The idea is to give audiences across Europe a shared view of the same stories, without asking them to read the news in a second language.   Over its 24-month run, the project will bring together 8 media partners to produce more than 350 pieces of journalism across 5 languages - one among the most ambitious multilingual editorial collaborations in recent European media.   Coverage will focus on the issues that cut across borders: housing affordability, the green transition, disinformation and foreign interference in elections, the power of Big Tech platforms, inflation and economic insecurity. Each episode will ground EU-level debates in on-the-ground reporting, with expert analysis of what's at stake, and what policymakers are actually doing about it.   To keep the coverage genuinely pan-European rather than shaped by any one national perspective, editorial leadership rotates between partners throughout the project. Content will be distributed across partner platforms and available for free on The Audio Marketplace (TAM), a shared European audio infrastructure that boosts both reach and long-term discoverability. lensEU is coordinated by OKO.press (Poland) alongside Die Presse (Austria), CORRECTIV (Germany), Telegram.hr (Croatia) and TVNET GRUPA (Latvia), with support from international news agency AFP (France), ENEX (Luxembourg) and Mainspring (Austria).   The project is co-funded by the European Union under the Multimedia Actions programme and runs for 24 months from April 2026.

📸 AFP – Latest job opportunities worldwide • Video Journalist for West Germany - Frankfurt • Photographer - Tokyo • Deputy Photo Chief for South Asia - New Delhi   ➡️ For more information, follow the link in the comments.

AFP has received two 2025 SOPA - The Society of Publishers in Asia Award nominations for 'Excellence in Reporting Breaking News' for our Myanmar earthquake coverage, and 'Excellence in Photography' for our reporting on cosmetic surgery in Afghanistan. When the earthquake struck Myanmar on March 28, killing more than 3,000 people, AFP was already on the ground. Our team reached the capital's biggest hospital before junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, capturing rare, unguarded moments at an outdoor treatment centre, and later reported from a wrecked school, a collapsed condominium, and a public crematorium. AFP Myanmar Correspondent Hla Hla Htay said she believed that being an independent and credible news agency reporting from disaster sites in the immediate aftermath spurred aid efforts and saved some lives. The Afghanistan nomination grew out of our Kabul bureau, the only international operation in the country with women serving as bureau chief, Afghan correspondent, and foreign correspondent. What began as curiosity about hair transplant ads around the city uncovered a quiet reality, that women were turning to cosmetic surgery as beauty salons remain shuttered under Taliban rule. Getting the story out required patience, trust, and care to protect everyone involved. Both nominations reflect what AFP's global network of journalists does every day, reporting from the ground where it matters most. 📸 © Wakil Kohsar | Sai Aung Main

📸 AFP invites you to the Deauville Sport Images Festival 2026 The Deauville Sport Images Festival returns for its second edition starting June 6, 2026, with a programme exploring sports photography via four main themes: current events, society, artistic photography, and historic photography. This 2026 edition focuses on women's sport, with several exhibitions and screenings dedicated to the careers of female athletes, as well as the viewpoint of women photographers. 🏎️ An immersive opening night: "The Night of Sport" A highlight of the festival, The Night of Sport marks the official opening on June 6 at 6:30pm. Open to all, the evening combines screenings of photojournalism and original video documentaries, testimony from athletes, and an awards ceremony. During the evening, two screenings will be dedicated to AFP photographers: Anne-Christine Poujoulat's photo series following the Raid des Alizés, and Lou Benoist's series capturing the 5th edition of the Normandy Beach Race.   🚴♀️ Thirteen free exhibitions throughout the city AFP will present an exclusive exhibition on the "Tour de France Femmes". This exhibition of photographs by Jeff Pachoud offers an immersive look into women's cycling via portraits and race scenes captured on the Tour de France. The work of the Agency's photojournalists will also be featured in the group exhibitions "20 Women's Sports Photographs That Made History" and "Best of 2025-2026." More information via the link in the comments. Ville de Deauville | BITL - Bring It To Light

🎙️ What an incredible first day at the WAN-IFRA, the World Association of News Publishers congress in Marseille! Meeting clients at our booth, inspiring speeches from AFP speakers such as Christine Buhagiar, Phil Chetwynd and A.G. Sulzberger from The New York Times. There were plenty of emotions celebrating the Golden Pen Award with our Palestinian photographer Mohammed Abed and colleagues from The Associated Press and Reuters. You can’t be here? Then take a look at our AFP trailer, showcased at the opening ceremony to relive the last year of news. Don’t forget our #InsideGaza screening at 4pm today for those at WAN-IFRA. #AFP #WANIFRA #Journalism #Media #AI

🎬 Behind The News - Covering the hantavirus crisis At the start of May an AFP journalist received a tip-off from a source about a mysterious illness infecting passengers on a cruise ship in the Atlantic. The call sparked a race to confirm the story on the record, and to mobilise AFP's teams on the ground who reached the cruise ship, some of whose passengers had been struck down with hantavirus off the coast of Cape Verde. The story then moved to the Canary Islands, where surviving passengers were safely disembarked. The story was a sobering one, reminding AFP's reporters of their experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic. 🎥 Watch the video: u.afp.com/SDA8

🏆 Photo and video journalists in Gaza to receive 'Golden Pen' award Professional photo and video journalists working in Gaza are to receive an annual press freedom award on Monday for risking their lives to report on the war, an association of publishers has said. The 2026 Golden Pen of Freedom will be handed to representatives of global news agencies still operating in Gaza -- Agence France-Presse, The Associated Press and Reuters -- "whose local journalists continue to provide consistent, professional coverage under extremely challenging conditions", said the WAN-IFRA, the World Association of News Publishers. "For over two and a half years, journalists in Gaza have recorded death, destruction, and human suffering in unparalleled terms," reads the citation of the award. "They are as much victims of the conflict as they are chroniclers of a war that erupted -- and continues -- around them." War broke out in Gaza after Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, triggering an Israeli military campaign. Media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says Israeli forces have killed more than 220 journalists, at least 70 of whom were killed in the context of their professional duties. The Israeli army says it never deliberately targets journalists. But since October 2023, it has claimed to have killed a number of people who it says were Palestinian militant "terrorists" working under the guise of being media professionals. AFP photographer Mohammed Abed, who worked in Gaza until April 2024 before joining its Cairo bureau, will be among those at the ceremony in the French city of Marseille. The award "acknowledges the sacrifice and endurance of local Palestinian media professionals living and working in a war zone," said WAN-IFRA, which holds its 2026 World News Media Congress from Monday to Wednesday. "It also recognises colleagues injured and killed in the course of doing their job." The Israeli government has barred foreign journalists from independently entering the blockaded territory since the war began. The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data. Israel's military campaign against Hamas since then has killed more than 72,800 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. Despite an October ceasefire, Gaza remains gripped by deadly violence as Israeli strikes continue, with both the military and Hamas accusing one another of violating the truce.

📺 AFP at the WAN-IFRA World Congress 2026 in Marseille   From June 1 to 3, AFP will take part in the 77th WAN-IFRA World Congress, a key gathering for the global news media industry, under the theme: “Rising Voices. Emerging Risks. Inspiring Futures.”   AFP teams will be actively engaged throughout the event, welcoming clients and partners at a dedicated stand and opening the congress with a video highlighting AFP’s coverage of major global events over the past year.   AFP speakers will also contribute to the programme: Christine Buhagiar, Director of Development and Diversification, will join a panel on media–startup collaboration. Phil Chetwynd, Global News Director, will lead a conversation with Katharine Viner (The Guardian) on the future of journalism and take part in a session on editorial leadership. The documentary Inside Gaza will be screened, followed by discussions with photographer Mohammed Abed. And he will be present to comments few of his images. At the Palais du Pharo, participants will be able to discover an exhibition of eight photographs taken in Gaza by AFP photographers. After the congress, AFP will host an international media study tour at its headquarters on June 5 to exchange on newsroom organisation and key topics such as AI, fact-checking and content authentication.   🔗 Link to the full programme in the comments.   #AFP #WANIFRA #Journalism #Media #AI

📷 AFP – Latest job opportunities in Asia • Photographer - Seoul, South Korea AFP is seeking a photographer for its Seoul bureau. The candidate will work in a fast-paced environment alongside text and video colleagues in AFP’s Seoul bureau to produce compelling, wide-ranging and accurate coverage to tell the story of South Korea to a global audience. • Chief Photographer - Jakarta, Indonesia AFP is seeking photo manager with demonstrated expertise for photography, journalism and visual storytelling to drive coverage across Indonesia. The candidate will be a dynamic individual who has the proven ability to lead a large photo network in a hugely competitive news environment.   ➡️ For more information, follow the link in the comments.