In the news
Is collaboration the key to journalism’s future?
April 5, 2016
By: David P. Ball
Excerpt from The Tyee
The largest-ever document leak in history had already begun Sunday as roughly 50 reporters and media observers packed into a room in downtown Vancouver to talk about the future of their craft.
The so-called “Panama Papers” — a trove of nearly 12 million documents revealing the offshore finances of hundreds of the world’s rich and powerful — took 370 investigative journalists from 76 nations a year to pore through.
The ambitious collaboration was coordinated by the U.S.-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
Although Sunday’s leaks weren’t on the panel’s agenda, the fact that such a mega-collaboration of investigative reporters could immediately grab the entire world’s attention would come as no surprise to the panelists.
One of them was Erin Millar, CEO of Discourse Media, a company of journalists and researchers that collaborates with existing media outlets to report on “complex issues,” for instance an in-depth project on Metro Vancouver’s transportation plebiscite last year.
“We need to be thinking more collaboratively,” Millar said. “Even though our industry is very traditional and competitive, we have a lot of resources to play with here. We are constantly churning in this environment of scarcity, but are still sending 10 reporters to cover the same news event.
“How can we collaborate to bring expertise and resources to the table to do work that’s ambitious and has impact?”
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