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How it works

Center for Cooperative Media training deskSeptember 2026

7 minute read
Nine newsrooms, one question, one publication day.

How a collaborative reporting project runs

The eight months between the first phone call and the day every newsroom publishes at once.

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The shape of the work

What a collaborative reporting project is, and what it is not

A collaborative reporting project is a group of newsrooms that answer one question together and publish the answer on the same day. Each newsroom keeps its own byline, its own audience and its own editorial judgment. What they share is the question, the reporting, and the date.

It is not a syndication deal. Syndication moves a finished story from one newsroom to another. A collaboration produces work that no single newsroom in the group could have produced alone, which is the only reason to accept the cost of running one.

The example on this page is invented. It follows 9 newsrooms answering one question about school transport over 8 months, from a first call in January to a publication day in September.

The stages

Six stages from the first call to publication day

  1. Agree on one question.

    Write the question in one sentence that a reader would ask. If the group needs two sentences, the group has two projects. In the invented project the question was: who decides which children get a bus, and how is that decision recorded?

  2. Name a project editor.

    One person holds the schedule, the shared folder and the final call on what is ready. The project editor works for the project, not for any one newsroom, even when one newsroom pays the salary.

  3. Write the participation agreement.

    Two pages. It states who may publish, on what date, with what credit line, and what happens when a newsroom drops out. In the invented project, 2 of the 11 newsrooms that started did drop out, and the agreement made both exits quiet.

  4. Gather the records together.

    One person files the records requests for the whole group, so 9 newsrooms do not send 9 separate requests to the same clerk. In the invented project this saved 5 weeks against the 2024 project, which had no shared filing.

  5. Report in parallel, edit in one place.

    Each newsroom takes a district and reports it. Every draft goes to the project editor before it goes to a home editor, so the group finds the contradictions between drafts before a reader does.

  6. Publish on one day, at one hour.

    A shared publication time is what turns 9 stories into one event. In the invented project all 9 newsrooms published at 6 in the morning on a Tuesday, and 4 of them ran each other's pieces the same week.

How work moves between the newsrooms and the project editor

  1. Project editor assigns a district to Nine newsrooms.
  2. Nine newsrooms sends its record needs to Shared records desk.
  3. Shared records desk sends every document to Group fact check.
  4. Group fact check clears every draft for Publication day.
The work moves one way around the loop, from the project editor's first assignment to publication day. The project editor reads every draft on the way.

Who does what in the group

The project editor

The project editor holds the schedule and the shared folder, and reads every draft.

In the invented project the editor worked 12 hours a week for 8 months. Two newsrooms funded the role together, and the participation agreement said the editor could not be overruled by either of them.

The participating newsrooms

Each newsroom reports one district and writes for its own audience, with its own sources.

Each newsroom also owes the group two things: drafts on the agreed date, and a warning as early as possible when it cannot deliver. In the invented project the 2 newsrooms that dropped out both gave 6 weeks of warning, which is why the group absorbed it.

The convener

The convener is the organization that starts the project, raises the money and holds the agreement. It is often not a newsroom.

A convener should not assign stories. In the invented project the convener paid the shared records desk, ran the weekly call and stayed out of every editorial decision, which is the arrangement the participation agreement describes.

Four problems that come up in every project

A newsroom wants to publish early

This is the most common conflict, and the participation agreement is the answer.

In the invented project one newsroom asked to publish 2 days early because a local council meeting fell on the Sunday. The group moved the whole publication day forward by 2 days rather than let one newsroom go first.

Two newsrooms have contradictory facts

This is a finding, not a failure. Two districts gave different answers to the same question, or one clerk gave a different answer to two reporters.

The project editor holds both versions, sends both back to the source, and publishes the contradiction if it survives. In the invented project 3 of the 9 districts changed their answer when asked a second time.

The money runs out before the reporting does

Budget the fact check and the publication week, not only the reporting. In the invented project 28 percent of the 96,000 dollar budget was spent after the last interview.

Keep 15 percent of the budget unspent until the drafts are in. The invented project used 11 percent of that reserve on legal review of one district's records.

Nobody reads the shared folder

A shared folder with 400 files is a folder nobody opens. Name one person to maintain it and give every file a name that starts with the district.

The weekly call is what keeps the folder alive. In the invented project the call ran for 30 minutes every Wednesday for 34 weeks, and the project editor sent 6 lines of notes after each one.

The schedule

Eight months of the invented school transport project

  1. January 2026

    The first call

    Eleven newsrooms join a 45 minute call. The question takes 3 more calls to write in one sentence, which is normal.

  2. February 2026

    The agreement is signed

    Eleven newsrooms sign a two-page participation agreement. Two of them will later drop out under the clause the agreement provides.

  3. March 2026

    The records go out

    One filer sends 9 records requests on the same day, with the same wording. The first documents arrive 5 weeks later, 3 weeks behind the plan.

  4. May 2026

    Reporting in the districts

    Nine newsrooms report their own district for 8 weeks. The weekly call becomes the place where each newsroom hears what the others found.

  5. July 2026

    The group fact check

    Every draft is checked against the shared documents by a reporter from a different newsroom. The check takes 3 weeks against a plan of 1.

  6. September 2026

    Publication day

    Nine newsrooms publish at 6 in the morning on the same Tuesday. Four of them run a second piece from a partner in the same week.

Words used on this page

collaborative reporting project
A group of newsrooms that answer one question together and publish on the same day, each with its own byline and its own audience.
convener
The organization that starts a project, raises the money and holds the agreement. It does not assign stories or edit them.
embargo
The agreed date and hour before which no newsroom in the group publishes any part of the shared work.
participation agreement
A short written document that states who may publish, on what date, with what credit, and what happens when a newsroom leaves.
project editor
The person who holds the schedule and the shared folder, reads every draft, and settles disagreements between newsrooms before publication.
shared records desk
One person or team that files records requests for the whole group, so several newsrooms do not send the same request to the same clerk.

collaborative reporting project

A group of newsrooms that answer one question together and publish on the same day, each with its own byline and its own audience.

Open the glossary entry

convener

The organization that starts a project, raises the money and holds the agreement. It does not assign stories or edit them.

Open the glossary entry

embargo

The agreed date and hour before which no newsroom in the group publishes any part of the shared work.

Open the glossary entry

participation agreement

A short written document that states who may publish, on what date, with what credit, and what happens when a newsroom leaves.

Open the glossary entry

project editor

The person who holds the schedule and the shared folder, reads every draft, and settles disagreements between newsrooms before publication.

Open the glossary entry

shared records desk

One person or team that files records requests for the whole group, so several newsrooms do not send the same request to the same clerk.

Open the glossary entry

Cite this report

Plain text

Center for Cooperative Media training desk. How a collaborative reporting project runs. How it works. Center for Cooperative Media, September 2026. https://jamditis.com/ccm-report-template/examples/explainer.html

APA

Center for Cooperative Media training desk. (September 2026). How a collaborative reporting project runs. Center for Cooperative Media. https://jamditis.com/ccm-report-template/examples/explainer.html

BibTeX

@techreport{desk2026how,
  author = {Center for Cooperative Media training desk},
  title = {How a collaborative reporting project runs},
  institution = {Center for Cooperative Media},
  series = {How it works},
  year = {2026},
  month = {September},
  url = {https://jamditis.com/ccm-report-template/examples/explainer.html}
}