LEDE |

Since the pandemic began, the landscape of journalism has shifted dramatically. Traditionally competitive, journalists and media outlets have found themselves in a rare state of unity.

This change is most evident in the United States, where the lack of consistent governmental transparency on COVID-19 has driven news organizations to join forces.

Faced with a common enemy, media organizations have united to create cohesive, reliable narratives about the pandemic and the societal upheavals it has intensified. With stories from New Jersey to Colorado, I investigated how newsrooms adapted, innovated, and thrived under unprecedented circumstances. What I write about below is a display of the shift in how information was gathered and disseminated during the pandemic—a move towards collaborative journalism.

Voiceover |

Earlier this year, - as the Covid death toll continued to mount, journalists from different media outlets in the US got together to report the crisis because they simply couldn’t do it alone. 

In New Jersey, several outlets launched Loved and Lost. 

It was a state-wide media collaboration that aimed to tell the stories of those who were in danger of becoming statistics. 

In Colorado  - Colorado Public Radio teamed up with newsrooms statewide to chronicle the pandemic in the COVID-19 diaries. 

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In Philadelphia, Broke in Philly - 19 local news organizations that cover issues of poverty and the push for economic justice quickly rose to the challenge and rallied their resources to represent the problems local and marginalized communities in Philadelphia are facing in this pandemic.

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Kristen Hare, Editor of Locally at Poynter |

"I think the real benefit to collaboration is it recognizes that we're better when we work together.

It breaks down some old barriers that journalists have about wanting to be first and scoops and things that don't necessarily benefit the audience all the time.

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And so it matters that we work together to get the most complete set of reflective set of information out to the public."

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Julie Christie, Data and Impact editor at Resolve Philadelphia |

"You know, our outreach and our relationship building has led to stories that our newsroom partners would not have known about because they don't have the resources or the relationships with those organizations that we do. "

"We're not going to really be doing reporting that opens up federal stuff and results in Senate hearings and stuff like that's not our that's just not a common or constant thing that we're doing. What we're doing is on a much smaller scale. And that doesn't make it any less important. It just changes it."

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​Voiceover |

Collaboration is not a word one would usually associate with journalists.

But these are not, normal times. 

The global pandemic. has taken a huge toll, on an industry that was already on its knees. 

Shrinking news outlets, thousands of lay-offs, reporters working from home. - just when the public needed journalists the most. 

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Stefanie Murray, Director of the Center for Cooperative Media |

"The industry has been struggling for the last decade-plus with business model issues, especially with the rise of social media platforms and the myriad ways that businesses can advertise today. That’s just taken a huge, huge financial toll on the journalism industry"

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Kristen Hare, Editor of Locally at Poynter |

"More than sixty-five newsrooms, and local newsrooms have closed because of the pandemic which is at a much-accelerated rate than it had been in years past. In the same amount of time. "

"And when there is no local journalism, local democracy is in danger."

"We know from studies that in places that don't have local newsrooms, there is drop-in voting and a drop in the number of people who actually run for office."

"So, it actually has a direct impact on communities."

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Voiceover |

Collaborative journalism is not a new phenomenon.

In the past few years, the model has been gaining popularity and success with groundbreaking journalistic works such as Documenting Hate, Unbelievable, The Out Crowd, and also Electionland.

In 2016, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists - the ICIJ - published the Panama Papers - an historic trove of leaked documents exposing politicians, businessmen and celebrities involved in suspicious financial dealings all over the world.

UPSOT |

“millions of files were leaked from one of the world’s most secretive offshore companies…” (VICE NEWS, Paradise)

Other collaboratives followed: the Paradise papers, Swiss leaks, West Africa Leaks and this year, the FinCEN file - all investigating offshore accounts. 

These collaboratives all involved more than 140 journalists working in at least 50 countries.

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Stefanie Murray, Director of the Center for Cooperative Media |

"So the Panama Papers, I wouldn't say it took people by surprise, but I think it opened a lot of people's eyes to what could be done if you were able to radically rethink a reporting process to involve a lot of people who didn't work for your news organization." 

"And ICIJ is particularly well equipped to run large collaboratives because of its infrastructure, because of how it works. The people it's got on staff and because it's developed expertise and running global, highly confidential, very secure investigations."

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Voiceover |

COVID-19 has galvanized collaborative projects not just in the U.S. but worldwide - and not just in small, local outlets - but the major media behemoths too. 

In the UK, the BBC is leading a collaborative effort with local news partnerships. 

Across Latin America, newspapers across countries like Brazil, Puerto Rico and Peru have collaborated on a national level to share front pages new on the coronavirus. 

In Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa, a group of women journalists from a Pan-African collaborative WANA Data are also delivering news of the pandemic. 

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Piece to Camera Farewell |

Around the world, never has information been so important for the public.

And as the pandemic has spread, so has a culture of sharing it. 

It may be counterintuitive, it may not last - but for the time being - journalists have loosened their grip for the benefit of their own industry - and for the society they have a duty to serve.