Newsroom collaborations are a powerful way to bolster and broaden journalism, allowing all types of organisations, from established global media to new digital ventures and local community sites, to produce original, in-depth, investigative reports.
The increasing complexity of modern news stories often demands collaborative approaches. Issues such as climate change, global supply chains, cybersecurity, and international conflicts require diverse perspectives, specialised knowledge, and extensive resources.
Collaboration allows smaller outlets to tackle stories of global significance while providing larger organisations with local insights and specialised expertise. Complex stories benefit from multiple viewpoints, with each participating organisation contributing unique insights based on their audience, geographic location, or specialised knowledge.
This diversity often results in more comprehensive, nuanced reporting that captures different facets of a story. The pooling of expertise allows for more sophisticated analysis and deeper investigation. When organisations with different strengths collaborate, they can tackle stories requiring varied skill sets – from data analysis and legal expertise to international contacts and technical knowledge.
Collaborative journalism is any cooperative undertaking – formal or informal – between two or more journalism organisations, or between a newsroom and an outside body such as an NGO or university, where they share resources, knowledge, or publication platforms to produce and distribute stories more powerfully than any one outlet could alone.
This can take many forms, from simple syndication where a smaller organisation can benefit from the reach of a larger organisation – or can reach audiences in different geographical areas – to full integration with teams working closely together and jointly producing text, video and audio.
Case studies
Then there are increasingly third parties funding or organising editorial partnerships and investigations which would not happen without their involvement such as Lighthouse Reports (Netherlands), which drives investigations in partnership with outlets such as The Guardian, Libération, and Der Spiegel.
The motivations and benefits of collaboration are many. For example, elevating storytelling with transnational investigations like the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC), initiated in 2016, which united outlets such as Der Spiegel, El Mundo, Mediapart, Le Soir, and NRC Handelsblad.
This network tackled major inquiries like Mapping the Weapons of Terror and Football Leaks, involving more than 60 journalists in 14 countries.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ (ICIJ) work on the Panama Papers exemplifies this, combining legal experts, data specialists, and regional journalists to create unprecedented global coverage.
Other examples include cross-border environmental reporting like Earth Journalism Network’s Oceans Inc (Asia-Pacific) which drew contributions from more than 12 newsrooms to spotlight covert illegal fishing. Wildlife trafficking exposés like collaborations in Kenya and Tanzania or region-wide investigations such as the Environmental Reporting Collective which marshalled journalists from 15 countries to uncover the pangolin trade in The Pangolin Reports.
Elsewhere, teams from The South China Morning Post (SCMP), Korea Times, Tempo (Indonesia), The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), and ABS-CBN jointly investigated digital sex crimes, conducting 20+ survivor interviews across 10 nations, with regular coordination calls and shared editorial standards.
Through EU programmes such as Creative Europe, seven projects – such as Cross-Border Local and Stars4media NEWS – provide grants (€400k–€2.4m) and mentorship for pan-European journalism and innovation across languages and borders which otherwise could not happen.
Technological collaboration
Technological advances have made collaboration more feasible than ever before. Digital platforms enable real-time sharing of information, collaborative editing tools allow multiple newsrooms to work on stories simultaneously, and secure communication systems facilitate coordination across time zones and languages.
These tools have removed many of the logistical barriers that previously made large-scale collaboration challenging. Institutional resilience is another strong reason to collaborate. Major investigative projects or legal challenges can be financially devastating for individual outlets, but collaborative approaches distribute these risks across multiple organisations.
This shared responsibility model has enabled more aggressive reporting on sensitive topics, as the collective resources of partner organisations provide greater resilience against potential consequences.
Collaboration offers significant financial advantages by allowing organisations to share costs while expanding their coverage capabilities. Organisations can split expenses for major investigations, share subscription to expensive databases, and jointly invest in specialised tools or training that would be prohibitively expensive for individual outlets.
Revenue sharing models are emerging where participating organisations benefit from increased traffic, shared subscription bases, or joint advertising opportunities. Some collaborations create entirely new revenue streams through combined offerings that leverage each partner’s strengths.
Crucially, collaboration can strengthen the impact of a story by coordinating publication in multiple outlets across multiple areas. More than 500 outlets, including The Times of India, Al Jazeera, Reuters, and Bloomberg, partnered in Covering Climate Now, coordinating content and amplifying reach in 60 countries.
This kind of coordination can maximise reach and strengthen credibility. It may also allow more angles to be covered – what is of primary importance in one territory may be different to another – as with the Panama Papers for example.
A large trove of documents was too much for one outlet to explore fully – but a network of partners could prioritise different facets and provide fuller overall coverage. This means different audiences can get greater local relevance and context.
Legal strategy co-ordination
When collaboration involves organisations in different countries, a number of legal issues arise.
First, the different jurisdictions might well have different laws affecting, for example, privacy, defamation, the press and protection of journalistic sources.
So the complexity and the risk of falling foul of the law in one country but not in another is increased.
There are also opportunities, involving the use of what’s known as legal arbitrage. This is when the partners in the collaboration carefully place certain content only in the countries where it is less likely to be actionable in the courts.
This approach was used by the partners involved in publishing extracts from the papers leaked by Edward Snowden, a contractor with the National Security Agency (NSA) in the USA.
The importance of collaborative partners coordinating their legal strategies cannot be over-emphasised.
Who can collaborate?
Besides the now famous examples of global coalitions collaborating, there are many opportunities at national and local levels.
For example at a national level, Tansa in Japan leads the Asian Dispatch consortium of 10 investigative newsrooms across Asia. And at a local level, in the UK, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has run Bureau Local for a number of years co-ordinating common investigations across local outlets from homelessness to Hot Homes – where local councils had failed to adequately manage “heat inequality.”
In addition they have offered training and support to local community sites seeking to undertake their own investigative journalism. Local and community-focused collaborations are growing in many countries, with initiatives like Word In Black, a digital news collaborative of 10 black-owned media brands, launching new platforms to provide data-driven insights.
These partnerships recognise that diverse perspectives and community connections often produce more comprehensive coverage than traditional single-outlet approaches.
Technical and operational partnerships represent another significant category. News organisations are sharing everything from content management systems to distribution networks, allowing smaller outlets to leverage infrastructure they couldn’t afford independently.
Some partnerships focus on specific capabilities like fact-checking, data analysis, or multimedia production, creating centres of excellence that serve multiple organisations.
Conclusion
Journalism has traditionally been a competitive industry valuing exclusivity above all else. It’s a culture and approach which filtered down from the biggest organisations to small and local newsrooms.
However, the challenges faced by news organisations in terms of resources and issues to cover combined with the opportunities offered by technology from data analysis to secure communications to AI, mean that collaboration is increasingly recognised as a valuable approach to reporting major issues.
Collaboration unleashes storytelling depth, resource efficiency, trust, and audience impact – globally and locally. Technology will continue to facilitate collaboration, with emerging tools for remote coordination, automated content sharing, and cross-platform publishing.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning may further streamline collaborative workflows, helping organisations identify partnership opportunities and coordinate complex projects more efficiently.
The success of existing collaborative efforts provides models for future partnerships. Organisations that invest in clear communication protocols, shared technology platforms, and well-defined editorial processes are demonstrating that collaboration can enhance rather than compromise journalistic quality and independence.
Next we look at the issues journalists need to consider when planning a collaboration.
Richard Sambrook – Emeritus Professor of Journalism, Cardiff University
Related article
Q1: Why has the increasing complexity of modern news stories made collaboration more important in journalism?
A1: Because issues such as climate change, global supply chains, cybersecurity, and international conflicts require diverse perspectives, specialised knowledge, and extensive resources that are often beyond the capacity of a single newsroom.
Q2: What is collaborative journalism?
A2: It is any cooperative undertaking between two or more journalism organisations (or with external bodies like NGOs or universities) where they share resources, knowledge, or platforms to produce and distribute stories more powerfully than any one outlet could alone.
Q3: Give an example from the text of a transnational investigation that demonstrates the benefits of collaboration.
A3: The Panama Papers investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which combined legal experts, data specialists, and regional journalists to create unprecedented global coverage.
Q4: How has technology helped facilitate newsroom collaborations?
A4: Technology enables real-time sharing of information, collaborative editing, secure cross-time-zone communication, and has removed many logistical barriers, making large-scale collaboration more feasible.
Q5: What are some financial advantages of newsroom collaborations?
A5: Collaborations allow outlets to share investigation costs, split subscriptions to expensive databases, jointly invest in specialised tools or training, and explore revenue sharing models, increasing reach and reducing individual financial risk.
Q6: Explain how collaboration can strengthen the impact of a story.
A6: By coordinating publication across multiple outlets and regions, collaboration maximises reach, strengthens credibility, allows different angles to be covered, and provides local relevance to different audiences.
Q7: Name one example of a local or national newsroom collaboration.
A7: The Bureau Local in the UK, which coordinates investigations across local outlets on issues like homelessness and heat inequality, supporting local community sites in undertaking investigative journalism.
Q8: What operational partnerships are described in the text as part of collaboration?
A8: News organisations sharing content management systems, distribution networks, and specific capabilities like fact-checking, data analysis, and multimedia production to create shared centres of excellence.
Q9: What shift in journalism culture does the text describe in relation to collaboration?
A9: Journalism has traditionally valued exclusivity and competition, but resource challenges and technological opportunities have led to collaboration being recognised as valuable for reporting major issues.
Q10: How might artificial intelligence (AI) further enhance newsroom collaborations in the future?
A10: AI and machine learning may streamline workflows, help identify partnership opportunities, and coordinate complex projects more efficiently, enhancing collaborative storytelling without compromising journalistic quality.
