A collection of guides, tip sheets, and best practices for collaboration
This site is a collection of guides and workbooks created to help newsrooms design and manage effective, equitable and meaningful collaborative journalism projects in the service of communities. If you have one to share, let us know! Email [email protected].
The latest:
This is an ongoing series of interviews and Q+A sessions conducted by Will Fischer. Each month, Fischer sits down with leaders and visionaries across the field of collaborative journalism in the United States and beyond and asks them about their work, their collaborative philosophy, and the most pressing issues or challenges facing collaborative journalists today.
Browse the Collaborator Q+A archives.
Over the course of 2023, the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University worked in partnership with Rita Allen Foundation to facilitate 12 grants of $15,000 each that supported civic science and journalism collaborations.
The organizations chosen to receive the grant were wide-ranging, including science focused organizations as well as newsrooms.
Half of the projects were related to climate and earth science, with two focused on air quality, one on flooding, one on climate change, one on water testing, and one on water management policy. During the year, members of the grantee cohort met five times as a group to share how their projects were going and to receive requested training.
One training session focused on civic science, its evolution and definition; a second webinar focused on fundraising strategy for civic science projects
Download the full civic science report (PDF).
As this field matures, we wanted to know: What’s working to generate revenue and sustain journalism collaborations, beyond philanthropy?
To answer this question, the Center for Cooperative Media, The Lenfest Institute for Journalism and the Solutions Journalism Network conducted a survey, interviewed collaborative project managers, funders and ecosystem support staff from around the country, and ultimately identified eight innovative examples of collaborative revenue experiments in progress to share with you. These experiments range from new reader revenue streams to newsletter sponsorships, monetizing events and sharing back-office services.
In this guide, we curate some of the top resources available to project managers and newsrooms today to help you put these ideas into action. Throughout, we share templates you can use in your own work.
We hope you find this toolkit useful in advancing your own collaborative journalism — both now and for the long haul. We plan to continue to update the guide with additional resources. Please fill out this short form if you’d like to share any ideas or lessons you’ve learned that we should include.
Download the full revenue guide (PDF).
The goal of Project Manager Playbook for Collaborative Journalism, created by Caroline Porter, is to identify the role of the collaboration manager, the person who oversees the day-to-day operations of a journalism collaborative.
In this way, the role of the collaboration manager stands out for its wide-ranging scope and opportunity to flex different skill sets. Reflecting the diverse shapes that these roles can take, you’ll see variety in title, time commitment, scope, requirements and responsibilities with these roles. We use the phrase “collaboration manager” in the playbook but we include the examples of collaboration directors, editors and other titles.
The playbook includes three profiles of collaborative leaders: Nick Charles, Dana Coester and Vanessa de la Torre. In addition, there are sample job descriptions, key characteristics and more ways to make sense of these roles and how you might envision yourself in a collaborative role.
Whether you are a mid-career journalist looking for a new way to use your industry skills and experience or you are a journalism student considering your potential place in the field, this playbook is for you. If you do not fit into either of those categories, this playbook is also for you.
Download the full playbook (PDF).
Collaborative Journalism Kit
Collaborating with non-news partners, by Heather Bryant
Building new partnerships for journalism collaborations, by Heather Bryant
Budget and finance for journalism collaborations, by Shady Grove Oliver
Building equity in journalism collaborations, by Angilee Shah
The Collaborative Journalism Workbook, Second Edition, by Heather Bryant
Building a tool set for journalism collaborations, by Heather Bryant
Thanks to support from the Rita Allen Foundation, the Center surveyed the country’s leading collaboration managers to help create the toolkit above for improving collaborative efforts and addressing the most common questions we’re all trying to answer.
You can download the PDF of each by clicking the links above, or you can see them all online at collaborativejournalismhandbook.org.
Participatory Journalism Playbook from Internews
From jesikah maria ross: When I say “participatory journalism,” here’s what I mean: Selecting and developing stories in conversation with the communities most affected; Designing a reporting process that generates understanding, connection, and trust; Strengthening existing networks and forging new alliances that build community resilience beyond reporting.
Click here to read the playbook.
A Collaborative Playbook from Solutions Journalism Network and the Reentry Project
Solutions Journalism Network is a non-profit organization whose mis-sion is to advance solutions journal-ism, the practice of reporting with equal rigor not only on challenges and problems but also on responses with a proven track record of effectiveness.
Click here to read the playbook.
Strategies for tracking impact
You’re close to launching a collaborative journalism effort. Your partner organizations are on board, you’ve identified a topic and scope of work. You’ve talked about your collective goals in broad brushstrokes. Now it’s time to set a clearer plan. This guide from Solutions Journalism Network and the Local Media Project will help you figure out what success looks like for your collaborative project.
Collaborative data journalism guide from ProPublica
Working Together Better: Our Guide to Collaborative Data Journalism
- Introduction: What Is Collaborative Data Journalism, and Why Would We Want to Do It?
- Part 1: How to Run a Collaborative Data Project
- Part 2: Assembling the Partnerships
- Part 3: Launching the Project
- Part 4: Maintenance
- Part 5: Winding Down the Project
TEMPLATES: Partnership agreements, MOUs, and policies
Collaborative journalism partnership agreements, MOUs, contracts
- From Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, a template for an MOU centered around story collaboration.
- From Resolve Philadelphia, an example of an MOU for a multinewsroom collaborative.
- From WNYC, a sample term sheet for a collaboration.
- From American University/WAMU, an example of the MOU from their Guns & America project.
- From Twin Cities Public Television, a template for a broadcast project with joint copyright.
- From Your Voice Ohio, an example of an MOU.
Collaborative journalism workbook
Also at the 2018 Collaborative Journalism Summit, Heather Bryant of Project Facet unveiled a workbook for collaborative projects. This workbook will help you get in the weeds and think through practical considerations for your project.
Click here to access the workbook.
5 frameworks to help improve collaboration in news organizations
The American Press Institute gathered more than 60 news leaders and experts from outside journalism to explore solutions for fostering belonging and collaboration in local news organizations. The API Local News Summit for Table Stakes Alumni was held in July 2024 in Minneapolis.
Click here to see 5 ideas to steal and adapt
Tips for successful news publishing partnerships
With many local newsrooms trying to do more with less these days, looking outside your newsroom to partner with other local news publications can have the effect of having a larger, more diverse staff that can cover more topics, more areas of your region, and be more representative of your community.
Click here to access this guide from the News Media Alliance.
Collaborative playbook
At the 2018 Collaborative Journalism Summit, the Solutions Journalism Network and Resolve Philadelphia previewed the new “Collaborative Playbook,” which is based off the work done as part of the ReEntry Project by Resolve Philadelphia. The playbook is a great high-level look at setting up a collaborative.
Click here to access The Collaborative Plavbook.
Roadmap for local news collaborations
The Bureau Local is a people-powered network setting the news agenda and sparking change, from the ground up. This brief roadmap includes information about the three basic steps to setting up a local news collaboration.
Click here to access the roadmap (PDF).
Tip sheets for collaborative journalism
The tip sheets in featured here are pulled from Dr. Sarah Stonbely’s seminal report, “Comparing Models of Collaborative Journalism,” and should provide useful advice and best-practices for each of the six collaborative journalism models studied in the report.