The Fellows 2025-2026

Louise Sloth is an experienced tv-journalist who has worked the past 19 years at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR). She has undertaken roles as editor, editorial lead, producer, journalist, presenter/host, speaker, and video-journalist. Louise Sloth has developed and produced critically acclaimed tv-formats in a range of genres such as documentary, portraits, lifestyle, and factual entertainment.

Louise Sloth holds a cand.mag. in English and Film & TV Studies from the University of Southern Denmark, Aarhus University, and Queen’s University of Belfast.

During her fellowship, Louise will explore how society can better support the often-overlooked relatives of those living with severe or chronic illness. She will examine the emotional and practical burdens they face, and how early, constructive communication and guidance can ease their journey. The project aims to highlight the role of relatives and strengthen public understanding of their challenges.

Peter Kryger is working at TV2 Øst. As VJ he produces news reports, features as well as longer series and stand alone documentaries. He is inspired by the American NPPA storytelling tradition and works hard to make a good story great by producing it by the terms of TV.

Over the years Peter has been giving presentations in storytelling and how to work smartest as a VJ. He has also been used as external teacher at RUC and DMJX, as well as external examiner at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Center for Journalism at SDU.

Throughout his many years as a journalist in the countryside, Peter has experienced firsthand how the young and strong increasingly moves to the city while the elderly and weak stay behind. A gap between Urban and Rural areas he has increasingly focused on in his journalism.

Peter is educated at DMJX in Århus and, in addition to his work at TV2 Øst, has had detours to the production environment to do documentary programs for DR.

During his fellowship, Peter will examine what it takes to create and maintain a good life in the countryside and find new ways to make villages modern places to live. He will investigate how you create sustainable local communities through the engagement of the resources present in resource-poor areas and study what it takes not only by those living there, but also from politicians and the surrounding society. In this effort, the media has a key role to play – but when those who cover the rural areas also disappear, who will then? Answers to that question will also be a part of the project.

Kassaaluk Kristensen is a journalist and digital editor with a strong background in editorial leadership, digital transformation, and public service journalism in Greenland. Proven ability to lead national news coverage across platforms, coordinate editorial teams through digital transitions, and develop innovative storytelling formats such as video, podcasts, and live blogs. Skilled in strategic communication, cross-departmental collaboration, and producing journalism that contributes to meaningful political and societal change.

In recent months, she has led Mediehuset Sermitsiaq’s coverage of national and international news related to the growing U.S. interest in Greenland, while also planning coverage of two national elections. This work resulted in close cross-departmental collaboration and the use of diverse storytelling methods across platforms.

During her fellowship, she will examine the specific considerations news organizations must take when transitioning from print newspapers to digital platforms – including how constructive journalism can support this shift, enhance collaboration among staff, and help strengthen local democratic dialogue. She will explore how the transition can be made more manageable for the employees involved, while ensuring that internal workflows are adapted in ways that respect and preserve core journalistic values.

Ralf Anderson is an experienced journalist, editor, host, media manager, consultant and educator. He is currently head of the Media Research and Innovation Centre at University of Southern Denmark, SDU, where he has now taught and researched journalism and media relations for several years, including developing the first course in climate journalism at a media education in Denmark. He has also previously been director of the journalism educations at SDU. In addition, he teaches regularly at the Greenlandic journalism education and has since the Arab Spring been a Senior advisor and trainer on media projects throughout the Middle East and Asia. He is also a Member of the Examiner Corps for all journalism academic educations in Denmark. He has previously worked at DR for a number of years, where he has hold positions as Leading Managing Editor of DR News and before that Head of Division, including responsibility for all staff and program production for DR2 and P1. He has also been working at TV2 with production of news and documentaries. In recent years, he has taken a master’s in cross media communication and another master’s in journalism, cand public (MSc).

During the fellowship Ralf will examine how journalism educations in their teaching and approach can show new paths in local and regional journalism that are more based on the journalistic role as inspirer and facilitator in the coverage and dissemination of the democratic conversation and citizens’ involvement, in local democracy. Part of the project will be based on the big Municipal Election Project: “Your choice. Our Denmark”, which the Constructive Institute is behind, with the goal to see how local media can strengthen democracy and the democratic conversation before, during and after the Municipal Elections in November 2025.

Niels Viggo Bentsen is currently employed as one of the news anchors at the regional station TV MIDTVEST. His work obviously consists of presenting complicated matters in an easily understandable way during four daily regional news broadcasts, but it also implies being a tv-news editor, a live reporter on the national channel TV 2 News, and writing online articles. Since graduating as a journalist from DMJX, Niels has worked in several public service regional media houses and in 2020 he was awarded a prize for excellence in digital storytelling alongside colleagues.

During his fellowship, Niels Viggo Bentsen will be part of the group of three AI Explorers working to gather information, knowledge and experiences from both companies and Danish media on the use of artificial intelligence in their work and news coverage of the possibilities and limitations of this fast-evolving technology. Niels will especially focus on the use of AI in smaller and medium-sized industrial businesses, of which there are many in the parts of Denmark he usually covers journalistically, and the local and regional media coverage surrounding these advancements.

Lise Thorsøe is the editor of the daily national radio show Formiddag på 4’eren at The Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s most-listened-to radio channel P4. The program’s mission is to involve people who do not necessarily follow the news in current topics, and the ongoing contact with the audience constitutes the core of the show.

Over the last 20 years, Lise has held several different positions at DR, mainly as a radio reporter, and she has worked at – among others – P3 Nyheder, Radioavisen, P1 Morgen, Kulturnyt, Temalørdag and P4 Østjylland.

During her AI Explorer fellowship, Lise wishes to examine what people in small businesses think of AI and which challenges and possibilities the new AI tools create in their daily work. The fellowship will investigate if public radio by making down-to-earth constructive journalism about AI can make small companies become more familiar with the technology.

Tobias Tange Jepsen has been the business editor at Herning Folkeblad for the past two years. Here he writes about companies in Herning Municipality and Ikast-Brande Municipality with more than 25 employees, entrepreneurship and higher education in the area. He is really interested in all the conditions that must be met for companies to perform and how to create and improve those conditions. Prior to his current job he was a local reporter in a small Danish city called Vildbjerg. Here he wrote about everything related to life in smaller communities. Tobias has a bachelors degree from Danmarks Medie- og Journalisthøjskole.

During his fellowship Tobias will explore how a large part of the Danish business community – the small and medium sized companies – can reap the rewards of using artificial intelligence. While large companies have large resources to explore the potential of new technologies, it can often be much more difficult for the smaller companies, and therefore they risk losing a lot of ground. He will specifically focus on the challenges these companies may face and how they can overcome them. Furthermore, the fellowship will focus on how the challenges and solutions can be portrayed in Danish media.

Anette Vestergaard is an experienced journalist and author, who has divided her carreer evenly between journalism and nonfiction. The first 15 years she was employed by outlets like Dagbladet (today Sjællandske Medier), Frederiksborg Amts Avis (also Sjællandske Medier) og Dagbladet Politiken (1995-2004).

From 2004-2017 she worked as an independent editor and writer in the publishing industry, mainly producing biographies for Gyldendal, Politikens Forlag, Lindhardt & Ringhof and Gad among others. This turn of carreer started with a commissioned title, ”Børneopdragelse gennem 100 år”, issued by Politikens Forlag in 2004. From 2006-2008 she worked as an inhouse nonfiction editor at Lindhardt & Ringhof. In 2017 Anette Vestergaard took a short stint as a temp on Bornholms Tidende. This stint has now lasted more than eight years and has, since she joined the board i 2020, become a mission for her, as a closer look into the economics of the paper showed that the company was in deep financial trouble.

During her fellowship, Anette will investigate how the danish print media industry is handling the transition from print to digital publishing in severe competition with social media and digital news outlets. Many national broadsheets have tried and failed to change their coverage in the hopes of keeping and attracting new subscribers. Many local papers have folded or merged.

Her aim is to produce a paper that will serve as a useful tool in the planning of editorial content, and at the same time support strategic solutions in the print and digital media of the future. She will investigate the strategies adapted by local newspapers by mining the data (reading time) and by learning how local media pursue to maintain and grow readership while calibrating the balance between ‘serious news’ and more popular types of journalistic work. The questions being: What can we learn from one another? Is there a common denominator across the country? And most importantly: How can we stop the decline in local news coverage?

David Arnholm has worked as a journalist at local newspapers for a quarter of a century reporting on all kinds of subjects. He is assisting news editor and op-ed writer at Lolland-Falsters Folketidende and has a special interest in the development of rural Denmark and the balance between country and city.

Together with author Helle Bertram he has written two biographies, and one of them was honored with the international Newsky Award as ”The best material on interfaith harmony and multicultural relations”. He is also one of the founders of Litteraturselskabet Stubbekøbing arranging talks with authors and poets.

How can the local newspaper stay relevant and support and play a part in the development of a small town like Stubbekøbing? Once this market town had its own mayor, police station and courthouse but today – like a lot of other smaller cities – it is stripped of all this and has seen most of the shops close. But a lot of local citizens are working hard to revitalize the city, and the reporters from the local newspaper should be an integral part of that development. Can constructive journalism be the key to gain that role as someone not just reporting but making a positive difference?

Anne Sofie Schrøder is an award-winning journalist, sociologist, and moderator with over a decade of experience in international investigative and cross-border journalism, reporting on corruption, disinformation, migration, women’s rights, and minority groups for outlets such as DR and Deutsche Welle. As a sociologist specialized in societal perceptions of brain injuries, she recently hosted and produced a big podcast series in collaboration with the Danish Concussion Center and the Danish Brain Council. She has received awards from the European Parliament for her work on disinformation and media literacy, and from the University of Southern Denmark for Best Master’s Thesis on doctors’ perceptions of patients with mild traumatic brain injuries. She has been affiliated with IJP, Journalismfund, the Robert Bosch Stiftung, and Transparency International’s team of Journalists for Transparency. She speaks five languages, has interviewed Mikhail Gorbachev, and performed at the UN with Cat Stevens.

During her fellowship in Life Science, Anne Sofie Schrøder will explore the latest basic research, collaborations across scientific disciplines and the population’s perception of the possibilities and challenges within Life Science with a focus on the coverage of these issues in the media. A particular focus will be on how research in Life Science can be translated into tangible societal solutions – for example, new treatments, personalized medicine, or technologies that can improve people’s quality of life.

Tea Krogh Sørensen is an experienced journalist at Jyllands-Posten with a focus on news, investigative journalism and case stories, especially within the health sector. She covers topics such as health policy, health economics, new treatments and recruitment challenges, and her journalistic heart also beats for ethical and biomedical dilemmas in healthcare. In 2019, she received the Cavling Award together with her colleague Morten Pihl for uncovering how thousands of women have received inadequate breast cancer screenings.

During her fellowship, Tea Krogh Sørensen will investigate what the new reform in the Danish health system (including the establishment of a new National Priorities Council) will mean to the challenges of prioritizing in the treatment of patients in a time where issues as inequality in health, increasing numbers of elderly people and patients with lifestyle-related diseases, preventive measures, new medicine and renewed treatments are on the agenda everywhere in the health sector.

She will look into the media coverage of these issues in order to examine to what extent the coverage may be strengthened through more nuances, perspectives and future oriented angling of stories, as well as debate and involvement of citizens and healthcare professionals.

Mette Guldagger is an experienced journalist covering the climate beat at the Danish newspaper Politiken, working with environmental and climate politics, the effects of climate change, nature preservation, agriculture, sustainable production, and most recently, “den grønne trepart”. She primarily tells stories through the people at the center of change and prefers field reporting to deskwork. After a brief period at DR Copenhagen producing radio, Mette joined Ritzau in 1994, followed by seven years at the Danish Consumer Agency, where she worked with consumer legislation, product testing, and the Consumer Ombudsman. She has spent the past 19 years at Politiken

“Sustainable Way of Saving Nature and Biodiversity”: Some people love the idea of wolves; others want to shoot them. Some people love to mow the lawn and find it untidy not to use pesticides; others want “Wild by Choice” and ecological, regenerative agriculture. Some let horses live wild to create biodiverse landscapes, while others harass them, accusing them of animal cruelty. The biodiversity crisis is as alarming as the climate crisis — perhaps even more so. Humans cannot live without nature. Insects, microbes, fungi, trees, and animals are essential to putting food on everyone’s table in the long run. But how do we ensure a sustainable future in a culture where there is so much conflict surrounding our changing views of nature? During her fellowship, Mette Guldagger will explore how the media can present solutions and facilitate a nuanced debate — one in which new ways of understanding nature and biodiversity can find their way into Danish culture.

Andreas Leer Scharnberg is an associate professor at the Danish School of Media and Journalism (DMJX), where he teaches in the journalism programme and coordinates the first semester. In recent years, Andreas has worked at the intersection of AI and journalism, leading research and development projects on how journalists can use AI and how to teach these skills to the next generation of reporters. His work has included training over 100 Danish journalists in generative AI, co-hosting a podcast series exploring the role of AI in the media industry, and organising a dedicated conference on AI in journalism. Earlier in his career, Andreas worked as a journalist at Jysk Fynske Medier, one of Denmark’s largest regional media groups.

During his AI Explorer Fellowship at Constructive Institute in spring 2025, Andreas Leer Scharnberg will explore how artificial intelligence is being used in Danish companies – and how media coverage of this development can be improved. His goal is to help prepare the next generation of reporters to engage with AI – both in their journalistic work and in their reporting – with greater nuance and responsibility.

Knud Lind is the host of the national current affairs radio show Formiddag på 4’eren at DR P4, a role he has held for five years and still considers his dream job. In addition to his extensive experience in radio, Knud has worked as a TV reporter and journalist for regional TV, daily newspapers, and in the advertising industry, taking on roles as reporter, producer, and editor. As a journalist, Knud is driven by the conviction that democracy functions best when people actively participate and engage with it.

From February to July 2026, Knud Lind will participate in the fellowship program to explore how artificial intelligence is being adopted by Danish companies and how media coverage of this topic can be enhanced. With a critical focus on quality, depth, and framing, he will investigate the implications of AI adoption for transparency, ethics, and workplace culture in Denmark.

Trine Marie Hildebrandt Vestergaard is a financial journalist at Dagbladet Børsen, where she investigates and reports on cases and financial statements from the largest companies in the Danish financial sector. Her aim is to make these stories more accessible so that a broader audience can understand how the sector influences society. She has worked at Børsen since 2021 and has previously covered the Danish real estate industry as well as urban development and architecture — including as part of the rethinking of Børsen’s weekly supplement Børsen Ejendomme. Trine Marie graduated as a journalist from the Danish School of Media and Journalism. Before Børsen, she worked as a journalist at Teknologiens Mediehus and Aarhus University.

With the rapid development of AI, small and medium-sized companies face both significant opportunities and considerable challenges. At the same time, media coverage of AI is often marked by generalizations, hype, or technical complexity, making it difficult for businesses to navigate the landscape. As part of the AI Explores program, supported by the Danish Industry Foundation (Industriens Fond), we aim to collect insights, knowledge, and experiences that can help improve media coverage of AI — making it more relevant, informative, and useful for businesses.

Karen Keinicke has been deeply committed to making journalism relevant and important to citizens for over 20 years. She views journalism’s role as making a positive difference in people’s daily lives by engaging and involving local communities in solutions, thereby building hope and shared dreams.

Throughout her career, Karen Keinicke has worked with local journalism, including as a radio reporter at the Aalborg local radio station ANR, as a business and lifestyle reporter at Nordjyske Stiftstidende (local news paper), and in 2003, she helped start the country’s first 24-hour TV news channel, 24Nordjyske. Here, she served as editor and anchor for several years.

For the past six years, Karen Keinicke has been the editor-in-chief at Det Nordjyske Mediehus. As part of the top management of the country’s second oldest media house, she has helped lead the old newspaper house into a digital reality.

Karen Keinicke has set out to investigate how a different journalistic approach to local and regional politics can help increase citizens’ engagement in society. Local politics are about dreams and hopes for one’s daily life, but all too often end up in conflict stories about political quarrels – or the mistakes and shortcomings of local politicians.

During the municipal elections in the fall of 2025, Karen Keinicke, together with the rest of the team around “Dit Valg, Vores Danmark”, will investigate whether a different starting point from the media can strengthen local democracy and cohesion.

Elisa Hofmann is an experienced postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Communication Science at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany. Her interdisciplinary work bridges constructive journalism, behavioral economics, social psychology, media economics, and computational methods.

With more than eight years in academia, four years in media management, and six years in journalism, she combines applied industry insights with a strong theoretical foundation. As an alumna of the Foundation of German Business, she brings an entrepreneurial mindset to her research. She is also a certified LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® facilitator with experience in facilitating team processes and collaborative workshops.

Her previous academic work has examined prosocial behavior, social norms, interpersonal closeness, participative pricing mechanisms, and resilience. More recently, she has focused on the theoretical foundations of constructive journalism, how newsrooms implement it, how it manifests in journalistic content, and how it shapes audiences’ emotions, cognition, and behavior. She regularly presents her research at national and international conferences and engages in various outreach activities.

During the fellowship, she will focus on how constructive journalism can be conceptualized in both academia and newsrooms. She will also examine whether constructive journalism can serve as a profitable business model and develop approaches for measuring its value within media organizations. In addition, she will collaborate with the Constructive Institute to further advance the constructive news algorithm.

Mads Daugbjerg is an associate professor of anthropology at Aarhus University. His main research concerns issues relating to heritage, cultural tourism, collective memory, and national identity. Much of his work has focused on the traces of wars and conflicts – historical as well as ongoing ones – and on how these traces are understood and used today. One example is his long-running research on how the landscapes and legacies of the American Civil War are being re-mobilised and put to use in America’s current conflicts.

Mads works in the ethnographic research tradition, where he spends extended periods of time in ‘the field’ with the people whose lives and worlds he seeks to understand. His work is published in leading scientific journals such as the International Journal of Heritage Studies, Memory Studies, History and Anthropology, Museum and Society, Ethnos, Critical Military Studies, and the Journal of Material Culture. However, he also seeks to engage with Danish readers and audiences, one recent example being the six-episode podcast Borgerkrigens Ekko on today’s ‘echoes’ of the American Civil War that he created in 2024 in collaboration with historian Mads Thernøe and radio journalist Susanna Sommer. In 2013, Mads was awarded the Danish Tietgen award for his work to bridge academia and business development.

Mads will join the two-year Kultur Explorer project at CI, teaming up with the program’s shifting fellows to map and analyse what seems to be a crisis in cultural journalism in Denmark and suggest new paths towards innovation. As an anthropologist interested in questions of national identity, memory, and heritage – and in the very concept of culture and its various manifestations – he will work to connect the team’s investigations to wider research discussions and literatures. The Explorer project provides a room for deeper reflection, not just on the predicaments of the coverage of conventional ‘culture’ in Danish media, but on how we may have to rethink key terms such as culture, media, and audience – and the changing connections between them – in today’s tumultuous and fragmented world. If news media are still ‘the fourth estate’, what kinds of power do they wield? If culture is still a sort of societal ‘glue’, what types of stickiness does it provide?

Annegerd Lerche Kristiansen is a digital journalist at DR, where she has worked over the years with cultural journalism, digital storytelling, and new digital formats. As a journalist, she has helped develop DR’s award-winning digital stories and has received DR’s language award ‘Sprogprisen’ for her work. Before joining DR, Annegerd worked as a cultural journalist at Politiken, among other places. She holds a degree from Roskilde University.

During her fellowship, Annegerd will explore how art and culture are covered in the Danish media at a time when cultural journalism is under pressure in many places. She will also examine how cultural journalism can be strengthened in the future — with a particular focus on constructive approaches and methods.

Thomas Lee is an award-winning journalist employed at the regional media outlet Nordjyske, Denmark’s second-oldest media house. In recent years, Thomas Lee has led Nordjyske’s political coverage, a role that culminated in his position as editor for the outlet’s reporting on the 2025 municipal elections. It was also as a journalist at Nordjyske that he and two colleagues won the Marenprisen-award in 2023 for their investigation into the abuse that took place at Gravenshoved Boarding School. Thomas Lee graduated in journalism from DMJX in 2014 and has since worked for both local and national outlets within the TV 2 network before joining Nordjyske in 2019. Over the years, he has worked as a reporter, video journalist, TV host, youth correspondent, and editor — always with a keen eye for storytelling and solid journalistic craftsmanship.

Several media organizations aspire to produce more constructive journalism, but not all have the tradition or newsroom culture to support it yet. Through his fellowship, Thomas Lee will explore how media organizations can integrate constructive journalism into their workflows and editorial culture. He will also examine how constructive journalism may need to be adapted depending on the audience it is intended for.

Kaj Høivang is an experienced journalist, consultant, and advisor with more than 25 years of experience in journalism, press and communications, public affairs, politics, legislation, and regulatory issues within the media industry.

Kaj currently works as a journalist at MediaWatch, which covers the media industry broadly. At MediaWatch – part of Watch Medier, owned by JP/Politikens Hus – he primarily writes about the political framework conditions, legislation, and regulation of the media sector in Denmark and at the EU level, as well as the consequences of the growing influence of American tech companies in the market, key trends, and more.

He has been a commentator, debater, and columnist for Børsen, Markedsføring, Kforum, and MediaWatch, contributing analyses and perspectives on media conditions, trends, and developments. Kaj has also worked as a freelance journalist for outlets such as AdvokatWatch, JFM, and K-NEWS.

In addition, Kaj has held various positions across different parts of the media industry, including as Head of Communications. He was responsible for TV 2’s advocacy and public affairs work and served as an advisor to TV 2’s executive management and board on strategic and political matters.

Kaj graduated as a journalist from the Danish School of Media and Journalism (DMJX) in 1999, and in 2022 he earned a Master of Laws (cand.jur.) from the University of Southern Denmark (SDU). His master’s thesis examined the EU legal framework governing a member state’s ability to provide state aid to media companies such as TV 2 and DR.

During his fellowship, Kaj Høivang will focus on the decline of cultural journalism among media outlets.

He will examine the paradox that, while citizens in Denmark and elsewhere consume culture extensively and flock to concerts, theatres, and museums, their interest in cultural journalism is, conversely, weak. This development has led to the closure of culture sections in newspapers, reductions in cultural editorial staffs, and restructuring of cultural programs on radio and television.

A new digital era has changed the conditions and relevance of cultural journalism, as artists and curators today can reach their audiences directly through social media and their own websites—thereby no longer relying to the same extent on traditional media to gain attention or publicity for cultural events.

Digitalization has fostered a greater democratization of society, creating new opportunities to renew and revitalize cultural journalism for a broader audience. This development holds the potential to strengthen public engagement in debates about culture’s role in society. During his fellowship, Kaj will explore how cultural journalism can be reimagined—both in its content and its formats—to meet these new realities.

Kristina V. Skjoldborg is a local editor at JydskeVestkysten in Billund, where she has been responsible for the local newsroom since 2023. In this role, she leads the editorial coverage of issues of direct relevance to local citizens, with a focus on both critical accountability journalism and constructive journalism.

In her own reporting, Kristina primarily covers public services, including education, disability services and elderly care. Through this work, she has developed in-depth knowledge of how local political decisions and administrative structures affect citizens’ everyday lives, particularly within the welfare state.

Kristina has been part of JydskeVestkysten since 2018 and has worked with local journalism for seven years. She holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from Aarhus University and a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Cultural Analysis from the University of Southern Denmark.

During her fellowship, Kristina V. Skjoldborg will examine how JydskeVestkysten can strengthen young people’s critical media literacy at a time when many 15–25-year-olds primarily get their information from influencers and social media. As a result, young people’s first encounters with news often take place without the principles of source criticism, transparency and nuance that characterise professional journalism.

Kristina will explore whether JydskeVestkysten could offer young people free access to its journalism for a limited period of time. The aim is to examine whether early access can help establish news habits, encourage young people to seek out professional journalism and support them in becoming more critical media users.

She will examine which journalistic approaches make local journalism meaningful to young audiences and whether collaboration with foundations could support a sustainable funding model.