Here are the top journalism collaborations of 2024
Throughout the year, the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University tracks journalism collaborations in its database, on the collaborative journalism website, and through its newsletter.
This is all mostly thanks to the tireless work of Mariela Santos-Muniz and Joe Amditis from the Center, who meticulously log and track every collaboration we find. Shoutout to them!
Annually we reflect on all the collaborations we’ve collected and compile a top 10(ish) list, looking for collaborations that broke new ground, had an impact, or were otherwise noteworthy.
Here’s our list for 2024, which was put together with input from Mariela, the Center’s Civic Science Fellow Catherine Devine, and members of the Center’s collaboration manager community of practice.
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In no particular order, here’s our list:
Dubai Unlocked—OCCRP
Dubai Unlocked was published in May. It was a collaboration involving more than 70 media outlets led by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project that revealed who owns what in the Middle Eastern financial hub, and how the city has opened its doors to hundreds of people accused of criminality around the globe.
Rwanda Classified—Forbidden Stories
In Rwanda Classified, Forbidden Stories investigated a pattern of repression of journalists in Rwanda with the help of a coalition that included 50 journalists from 17 media outlets in 11 different countries. Rwanda Classified also looked into other aspects of Rwanda President Paul Kagame’s rule. “From assassination attempts and suspicious deaths to intimidation and the use of surveillance technologies even against members of the ruling party, our investigation reveals how the Rwandan government sets about silencing critics at home and abroad,” according to the project’s website.
Swazi Secrets — International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
Swazi Secrets is a cross-border investigation led by ICIJ that examined the tiny kingdom of Eswatini — Africa’s last absolute monarchy — and its posible role as a conduit in southern Africa’s gold smuggling economy. The project is based on a leak of more than 890,000 internal records from the Eswatini Financial Intelligence Unit. ICIJ worked with 38 journalists in 11 countries on the project.
40 Acres and a Lie—Center for Public Integrity, Mother Jones and Reveal
For 40 Acres and a Lie, the Center for Public Integrity, Mother Jones, and Reveal compiled Reconstruction-era documents to identify 1,250 formerly enslaved Black Americans given lan only to have it returned to their enslavers. The project “tells the history of an often-misunderstood government program that gave formerly enslaved people land titles after the Civil War. A year and a half later, almost all the land had been taken back. … We used artificial intelligence to track down the people, places, and stories that had long been misunderstood and forgotten, then asked their descendants about what’s owed now.”
Expecting worse: Giving birth on a planet in crisis—Grist, Vox and The 19th*
Expecting worse: Giving birth on a planet in crisis is a series that explores how climate change is impacting people’s reproductive lives, from menstruation to fertility to pregnancy. Initial stories explored how consuming salty water is affecting women in Bangladesh, malaria in Papua New Guinea, and the effect of heat waves and extreme weather.
Elections and Democracy Reporting Initiative—Center for Community News, University of Vermont
The 2024 election was the first big one tackled by the Center for Community News at the University of Vermont, which launched its Elections and Democracy Reporting Initiative. The initiative involved more than 140 faculty from colleges across the country who worked together to use and improve classroom resources, problem-solve in meetings, and refine election day coverage plans. The email list for the group was overflowing with content from students nationwide. Samples of that coverage can be seen at the Center’s National Community News Wire election hub.
Democracy Deferred — Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism
Democracy Deferred is a multi-part look into the 2023 Nigerian elections. The series brought together close to two dozen reporters from across the country who worked with CCIJ’s editorial team from Africa, Europe, North America, and Asia to produce a hard-hitting expose of an election that had one of the lowest turnouts globally since World War II.
Burning Skies—Environmental Investigative Forum, Daraj Media, SourceMaterial, and Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism
Burning Skies is an investigative series that examined the effect of gas flaring in Africa and the Middle East, led and reported by the Environmental Investigative Forum, Daraj Media, SourceMaterial, and Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism. The complicated collaboration used satellite and geo-data from the Earth Observation Group of the Payne Institute for Public Policy and the environmental NGO Skytruth to estimate 10 years of emissions and track who was to blame for the pollution caused.
NC Local News Workshop support following Hurricane Helene
Led by North Carolina resident Melody Kramer and NC Local News Workshop director Shannan Bowen, information resources and support were quickly organized and deployed to journalists and community members in Western North Carolina following the devastation of Hurricane Helene. This included a shared Slack community, helping to set up text-only versions of websites so residents could quickly access critical information without needing to load ads or images, as well as connecting newsrooms with freelancers and funding sources to support their operations. (The Center will have a longer article about this effort next month!)
Charlotte Journalism Collaborative milestones
The Charlotte Journalism Collaborative celebrated 5 years of collaborative, solutions journalism this year and launched a new website, moved to Queens University in Charlotte, hosted its third Local News Impact Summit, built another local news zine, announced plans to launch a Charlotte Documenters, and more. “The CJC has been a model for showing what’s possible when a truly collaborative spirit takes hold in a community and continues to work together with local residents at the center of our mission,” said director Chris Rudisill.
Granite State News Collaborative milestones
Like its sister organization the Charlotte Journalism Collaborative, the Granite State News Collaborative hit several notable milestones in the past year. It now boasts a reach of nearly 3 million, has cross-published more than 7,000 stories (equivalent to adding two full-time reporters to every partner newsroom), has produced more than 600 freelance articles, co-funded a reporter in a news desert, tested collective fundraising, debuted a youth voter guide. launched a civic documenters program, released “You’d Be in the Dark,” an original love song to local news, and (if that wasn’t enough!) is building a new content-sharing tool.
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Stefanie Murray is the director of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University. Contact her at murrayst@montclair.edu.
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.
