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Here are 5 commons ways that successful journalism collaborations get started

The Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University has been doing a lot of consulting this year with journalists around the U.S. who are interested in launching collaborative projects.

Often during those calls, we give an overview of the landscape of collaborative projects based off our internal research and our public database. (Sidenote: if you want a quick primer on collaborative journalism in general, watch this video).

During some of those conversations in the last several months, I’ve been asked frequently: How DO most collaborations get started?

We’ve found that the most effective collaborative projects we’ve studied are often:

  1. Inspired by an upcoming event that everyone is going to cover anyway. Elections are the easiest example, but also planned protests, some big speaker coming to town, etc.

  2. Inspired by an impending or looming crisis that everyone needs to cover. Detroit’s bankruptcy is a good example, which is how the Detroit Journalism Cooperative got its start, as are stories around the opioid crisis.

  3. Inspired by a lead partner who initiates conversations among other partners about teaming up on a particular enterprise topic. Good examples are stories about sea-level rise, Philly’s Re-entry Project, the SF Homeless project). This usually involves some level of trust that already exists between reporters or editors.

  4. Inspired by a partner who is having trouble cracking a story on their own and needs help to do it effectively. (The Panama Papers is the best example here, but also consider Rattled: Oregon’s Concussion Discussion as another great example — InvestigateWest is leading a large coalition through which they were able to drop and analyze hundreds of records requests and spread out to cover dozens of stories.)

  5. Inspired by a partner who brings resources to the table in terms of funding (i.e., they won a grant) or other support and part of the catch is that they collaborate.

If none of those conditions exist, but you have a group of people who are building relationships and trust and want to work on something together, there are a few other ways to approach selecting a topic.

  • First, of course, consider the overarching goals of your group, if there are any. Did the partnership form for any particular reason? Is solutions-oriented coverage a goal? Is improving trust a goal? Is serving underserved communities a goal? Sometimes collaboratives form around a mission, and if so, that’s the best place to start and tease an editorial strategy out from.

  • Avoid as a first step putting a bunch of editors in a room with a whiteboard and brainstorming. I can’t think of anything that could end up being more frustrating. Instead, perhaps consider some active listening exercises with the communities that the collaborators cover. This may be one of the best places to start — can we work together to convene a series of community listening sessions, and then come together to analyze and discuss what we found, and use it to create a pathway for our work together? Starting with a shared experience and shared data can create a solid baseline from which to build a collaboration.

Consider whether any of the above conditions actually do exist and we’re overlooking them. Is there a big upcoming event that we can tackle together, even as a first start? Is there a particular enterprise topic or story that one of the partners is chipping away at, and if we work on it together, we can do it bigger and better? Sometimes picking something small to start with is the best way to start.
Visit the Collaborative Journalism Database

Are you working on a collaborative journalism project? We want to hear about it!

We’re working to complete the records of collaborative projects around the world to create a resource that’s valuable for journalists involved in such projects, academic research, industry case studies and more.

When you look at the the collaborative journalism database, you’ll see it’s a work in progress — not every entry is fully filled out yet. (We’re working on that.) We’re continuing to contact organizations so that we can complete each record and also to add new collaborations as they happen.

If you've been involved in a collaborative project, we could use your help.

Make sure your project is listed: We’re in the process of loading every collaborative journalism project we learn about into the database. If your project isn’t listed yet, you can submit it using this form — we’re editing entries as they come in and adding them to the database.

Make sure your project is accurate: If you search the database and find your project, please let us know if there is missing information or if you can fill in any of the missing information. We're working with Heather Bryant to populate the database and you can email Heather (heather@projectfacet.org) with any information that should be included, or to fill in any of the missing data points.

Share the database with others: The collaborative news database is only comprehensive if we know about your project. We want ensure that projects from every part of the world and every size newsroom are represented. There’s a Medium post about the database and what we’re hoping to achieve. Please share this link, and let your colleagues know about submitting their information.

Tell us about your project!

Collaboration in the news

Reveal will fuel local, collaborative investigative reporting by helping newsrooms get the awkward conversations out of the way | Nieman Lab

Beyond borders: The collaborative newsrooms of the future | Talia Shadwell, University of Canterbury

Editorials defending the press are a nice start. Here’s where to go next. | The Washington Post

Lenfest Institute Launches New Lenfest Local Lab for Product Experiments | The Lenfest Institute

These fact-checkers teamed up across the Atlantic to cover a presidential debate in real time | Poynter

One last thing.

Feel free to forward this email to your friends and colleagues who have a knack for the collaborative or are interested in becoming part of this growing community! If someone forwarded this to you, you can subscribe by clicking here.

Want to continue the conversation? Click here to join our collaborative journalism Slack team!

Copyright © 2018 Center for Cooperative Media, All rights reserved.


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