Hey, a lot of people feel that the news orgs of the future involve networks of journalists, fact-checkers, and editors working together. I'm one of them, having stolen ideas from Ellen Miller, Jeff Jarvis, Jay Rosen, Dan Gillmor and others.
Well, the first such alliance has arisen, planning to operate in a public service, nonprofit mode.
Therefore, with a full appreciation of both the complexities and the
opportunities to be achieved by more formalized collaboration, the
nonprofit news publishers at Pocantico hereby declare that preparations
should be immediately made to form a collaboration, the Investigative
News Network (working title). Its mission is very simple: to aid and
abet, in every conceivable way, individually and collectively, the work
and public reach of its member news organizations, including, to the
fullest extent possible, their administrative, editorial and financial
wellbeing. And, more broadly, to foster the highest quality
investigative journalism, and to hold those in power accountable, at
the local, national and international levels.
Better commentary here by Josh Wilson of newsdesk.org:
Journalism's true strength in the Internet era is decentralized.
It's all about reporters -- and reporting teams -- working solo, and then
linking up in parallel to coordinate on stories, cross-promote, and
share resources.Parallel processing! Peer-to-peer networks. A network model
harnesses the inherent strength of the Web as a medium. This is the
thesis behind my work with Independent Arts & Media and Newsdesk.org.Now, on a significantly larger scale, a collaborative of nonprofit news agencies is teaming up to create a new entity: The Investigative News Network.