New Guests Crashing the Party: A Typology of Journalistic Collaboration

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study examines the key factors involved when news work is done through collaboration. The author draws on two years of ethnographic observation, interviews and textual analysis in examining two collaborations, the Dallas Media Collaborative and the Credible Messenger Reporting Project, and assesses the variables at play when journalists work alongside groups outside the traditional journalistic field—including nonprofits, universities, think tanks, artistic groups, and citizen journalists. Building on existing literature, the study defines collaboration as a partnership among organizations, at least one of which is committed to traditional journalistic values (i.e., truth, verification, independence and public service). Drawing on the “hierarchy of influences,” it lays out variables that impact whether a collaboration is likely to challenge those values: the identities of the partners, the level of integration of the partners, and the extent of the partnership’s commitment in terms of time and scope. The findings suggest that, while inclusion of non-journalistic entities is important, the degree to which new kinds of partners are integrated into collaborative editorial processes ultimately determines whether they have the ability to transform the field. When they are highly integrated, the study argues, collaborations enable onetime “extramedia” influences to impact journalism at the organizational level.