7 reasons to attend the 2025 Collaborative Journalism Summit in Denver
The 2025 Collaborative Journalism Summit is coming to Denver on May 15–16, bringing together media professionals from across the country to explore how partnership and collaboration can strengthen journalism and create meaningful community impact.
If you’re on the fence about attending, here are a few compelling reasons to join us in Colorado.
1. Learn from journalism’s most innovative collaborators
The Summit brings together trailblazers who have transformed collaborative journalism from concept to impactful reality. You’ll hear from Wendi Thomas and Ayanna Watkins of MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, whose investigative partnership with ProPublica led to nearly $12 million in medical debt being wiped clean for 5,300 patients.
The Summit also features speakers from Outlier Media sharing how its Detroit-focused collaboration helped residents recover lost funds, and Earth Journalism Network explaining its cross-border environmental reporting model.
Sessions will cover everything from the Chicago Media Project’s innovative use of AI and WhatsApp to reach migrant communities to Dallas Free Press’s unconventional arts-journalism partnership that’s reaching entirely new audiences.
2. Discover Colorado’s collaborative journalism ecosystem
Colorado has emerged as a national laboratory for collaborative journalism, with its ecosystem featuring more than 180 news outlets working together across content creation, community engagement, and capacity building.
Our opening keynote focuses on what Colorado news leaders have learned from years of successful collaboration. You’ll hear how eight news organizations are collaborating to fill a Spanish-language news desert in Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley and learn about the Colorado News Mapping Project, which became a catalyst for further collaborations across the state. Colorado College and University of Denver representatives will share concrete solutions from their experience that you can apply in your communities.
The state’s thriving collaborative media landscape provides a perfect backdrop for understanding what’s possible when news organizations unite around shared goals.
3. Find solutions to pressing industry challenges
The Summit will directly address the economic, technological, and audience challenges facing journalism today. The Press Forward plenary session will detail how this national coalition is investing more than $500 million to strengthen local newsrooms and build necessary infrastructure through coordinated grantmaking.
You’ll discover how The Conversation’s model of partnering with academic experts creates widely republished Creative Commons content that fills coverage gaps without exhausting newsroom resources. Sessions on building sustainable collaborations with freelancers offer practical approaches to expanding your organization’s capacity while providing fair compensation. The Climate News Task Force will share how its 11-newsroom collaboration has attracted philanthropic support that individual outlets couldn’t secure alone.
These solutions-focused sessions provide actionable strategies for addressing resource limitations, audience fragmentation, and sustainability challenges.
4. Connect with potential partners and collaborators
You’ll have face time with collaborative journalism leaders, funders, technologists, academics, and community partners who share your commitment to impactful journalism.
Beyond formal sessions, the Summit includes opportunities to build relationships that could evolve into powerful partnerships. The opening night cocktail reception at Rocky Mountain PBS’s Buell Public Media Center puts you in direct contact with dozens of potential collaborators in a relaxed setting.
Structured networking opportunities during breakfast and lunch breaks facilitate meaningful connections around specific topics. Themed breakfast meetups let you connect with attendees working on similar initiatives, like the pre-registration breakfast with the 100 Days of Dignity team (including me!) on Day 2.
5. Get practical tools you can implement immediately
This year’s schedule emphasizes actionable takeaways you can apply as soon as you return to your newsroom. The Statewide News Collective will share its methodology for measuring hard-to-track community impact, developed through research with New Hampshire Public Radio, Bridge Michigan, and Montana Free Press.
The Marshall Project will demonstrate its open-access tools designed specifically for local newsrooms. ProJourn’s legal checkup clinic provides personalized guidance on protecting your news collaborative from legal risks. The Granite State News Collaborative and Plucky Works will present a scalable solution for story sharing across collaboratives. The new Collaborative Journalism Resource Hub will be introduced, offering ongoing support for your collaborative efforts.
These practical sessions focus on implementation in addition to theory, ensuring you leave with concrete resources to enhance your work.
6. Explore innovative approaches to reaching new audiences
Learn about groundbreaking strategies for engaging underserved communities and expanding your audience through collaboration. Chicago Public Media will detail how it used WhatsApp and AI to reach the city’s migrant population in two languages, providing critical verified information and countering misinformation. Hear how the Wichita Journalism Collaborative leverages community events to grow audience engagement across multiple platforms.
The session on collaborative listening with Trusting News will provide a framework for systematically gathering and acting on audience insights through your collaborative network.
These sessions will explore how collaborations can help you connect with audiences that single news organizations struggle to reach effectively, particularly in underserved communities.
7. Be part of journalism’s collaborative future
The future of journalism is collaborative, as Heather Bryant has been saying for years. Collaborative journalism has evolved from an occasional practice to an essential strategy for sustainable, impactful local news. The Summit connects you with the movement’s leading practitioners, funders, and visionaries.
The Collaborative Journalism Resource Hub introduction will showcase the field’s growing infrastructure and resources. The keynote on MLK50’s community impact demonstrates how collaborative models can produce journalism that tangibly improves lives. Sessions on partnerships with freelancers, academic institutions, and non-news organizations illustrate how the collaborative approach continues to expand and evolve.
By joining us, you’re positioning yourself and your organization at the forefront of this transformation — gaining the knowledge, connections, and inspiration to lead collaborative efforts in your own community and contribute to building a more sustainable and impactful future for journalism.
🎟️Need a scholarship ticket? Email summit@collaborativejournalism.org to ensure the ticket price isn’t a barrier to your participation.
👋 Join us in Denver to prepare to partner! Register today at collaborativejournalism.org/summit.
Joe Amditis is the assistant director of operations at the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University. Contact him at amditisj@montclair.edu or on Twitter at @jsamditis.
About the Center for Cooperative Media: The Center is a primarily grant-funded program of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. Its mission is to grow and strengthen local journalism and support an informed society in New Jersey and beyond. The Center is supported with funding from Montclair State University, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium, the Independence Public Media Foundation, Rita Allen Foundation, Inasmuch Foundation and John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. For more information, visit centerforcooperativemedia.org.
