Last week, the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University in New Jersey hosted the 2018 Collaborative Journalism Summit.

This was the second summit, and like last year’s event, it was jam-packed with examples of awe-inspiring projects from around the globe.

About 150 people attended the event, mostly journalists, media execs, trade association folks and funders. It featured three keynote sessions, eight case studies, seven workshops and two cocktail receptions. (A full recap with stories from the Summit, all the presenters’ slides, videos, and lots of extra links will be posted later this week on collaborativejournalism.org)

I originally wrote this post to give Gather subscribers an inside peek — we love what the Agora Journalism Center has built with Gather! — but thought it would be good to share it publicly, too.

So here you go — an early look at the top 5 coolest takeaways so far from the 2018 Collaborative Journalism Summit:

1. Check out the “State of Collaboration”: Know just a little about collaborative journalism or need a good overview? Start here: The Center released a 9-minute video that gives an overview of the current state of collaborative journalism at the Summit.
2. New playbook for collaboration: Solutions Journalism Network presented its new Collaborative Playbook during a workshop at the Summit, and it’s chock-full of fantastic anecdotes about The Re-Entry Project and tons of tips for those considering putting together a collaborative project.
3. New workbook for collaboration: After you read through the SJN playbook, take a deep dive and start planning your project with Heather Bryant’s new Collaborative Journalism Workbook. Heather (the founder of Project Facet) walks you through what your project could look like and things to consider.  
4. Election collaboratives are happening all around the world: In addition to First Draft News and its well-known project CrossCheck, which fought disinformation during the last French presidential election, and First Draft’s work in the U.K., there are currently several other similar election-related collaborative journalism efforts under way. One is in Brazil (First Draft is also coordinating this), another is in Mexico (Meedan is a key player in this), and more are coming up later this year in the U.S. (Electionland) and Sweden.
5. News ecosystems can benefit quite a bit from ethnic and mainstream media partnerships: The American Press Institute will soon release the fourth and final installment in its research series examining this issue; Daniela Gerson presented her most recent findings at the Summit.  

Want to be notified when we publish other stories, slides, links and materials from the Summit? Be sure you sign up for our collaborative journalism newsletter.

About the Center for Cooperative Media: The Center is a grant-funded program of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. The Center is supported with funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and Democracy Fund. Its mission is to grow and strengthen local journalism, and in doing so serve New Jersey residents. For more information, visit CenterforCooperativeMedia.org.