Understanding Collaborative Investigative Journalism in a “Post-Truth” Age

Abstract

The political economy for watchdog reporting is deeply challenging, yet exposing abuses of public trust had renewed focus in 2016. “Spotlight”—a Boston Globe investigation into Catholic Church sex abuse—inspired an Oscar-winning film. Two months later, 300 International Consortium for Investigative Journalism members broke the global story of tax evasion with the Panama Papers. These represent exemplar moments for watchdog journalism in a “post-truth” age characterised by fake news. They illustrate a shift in investigative reporting practice: from an “old model” of a highly competitive single newsroom environment—like the “Spotlight” team—to a “new model” of multiple newsrooms (and countries) sharing information to expose wrongdoing on a global scale, like the Panama Papers. This paper applies mixed methods to analyse the development and consequences of this new model of collaborative investigative journalism. It examines 30 years of national media awards in Britain, the United States and Australia to identify when award-winning newsroom collaborations began, their key story targets and outcomes. These findings are triangulated with interviews with investigative journalists. The findings theoretically and empirically add to emerging scholarship examining how digital media technologies—held responsible for the “journalism crisis”—paradoxically offer opportunities for evidence-based journalism.