Collaborative journalism

Collaborative journalism is a growing practice in the field of journalism. One definition is "a cooperative arrangement (formal or informal) between two or more news and information organizations, which aims to supplement each organization’s resources and maximize the impact of the content produced." It is practiced by both professional and amateur reporters. It is not to be confused with citizen journalism.

Further definition

Collaborative journalism can take many forms. One way to categorize collaborations is by duration (either temporary or ongoing), or by the level of integration among collaborators (from no integration to top-level organizational integration). Most collaborations can be placed within a matrix defined by these two variables, as here:

Depending on the system of collaboration, individuals may also provide feedback or vote on whether an article is newsworthy. A single collaborative news story, therefore, may encompass multiple authors, varying articles, and ranged perspectives.Whatis.com
What is collaborative citizen journalism?
2006, ''TechTarget''

Professional and amateur reporters may work together to develop collaborative news articles, or mainstream media sites may gather amateur blog posts to complement reporting.

Collaborative journalists either contribute directly to stories, sometimes through a wiki-style collaboration platform, or build upon the story externally, often through personal blogs. Through combined authorship, collaborative journalism is thought by some to offer an increased independence of thought and experience unavailable to traditional media.Stelter, Brian.
Mainstream News Outlets Start Linking to Other Sites
12 October 2008, ''New York Times''

Successful collaborative journalism projects require a participatory ethos with respect for content.

History

Collaboration among reporters or between newsrooms has been practiced in different forms for more than one hundred years. One of the earliest journalism collaborations was among the newsrooms that made up “the wires” in the mid-nineteenth century. Yet through most of the twentieth century, especially after the advent of the penny papers, competition between outlets was the norm. Yet even during the height of profitability in the late twentieth century, when competition, not collaboration, was the most salient relationship between newsrooms, it was common practice for journalists on the same beat to collaborate by sharing notes, swapping tips, and in general helping each other out. Formal collaboration during that period was most common within an organization, rather than between. For example, Cable News Network (CNN) was formed in 1980, and codified intra-newsroom sharing – between the national headquarters and its television news affiliates – with CNN NewsSource, in 1988.

However, there is a qualitative difference in the consciousness and intentionality with which collaborations are now being undertaken. The current excitement about collaborative journalism began in the mid-2000s, when publishers, journalism scholars, and foundations began to look at the opportunities made possible by digital networking.

Panama Papers

The Panama Papers project may be the largest example of a journalistic consortium to date. It began sometime in 2015 (date?) when Bastian Obermayer, an investigative reporter with the south German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, was contacted by an anonymous source and offered the trove of 11.5 million electronic documents from Mossack Fonseca

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases