Q&A: André Natta on how collaboration can knock down barriers to news and information

André Natta is a collaborations editor at MuckRock and a Tiny News Collective team member. An experienced local journalist, Natta has also worked on collaborative journalism initiatives at Resolve Philly and Lenfest Local Lab.

We caught up with Natta to hear about why collaborative journalism is a powerful mechanism to improve quality access to news and information.

WF: How did you get started in journalism?

AN: When I was a child growing up in New York, there were a lot of Black role models in journalism. Vic Miles, one of the first TV reporters for the CBS affiliate, lived a couple of buildings down from me, as did John Johnson, who worked at the ABC-TV affiliate. On weekdays, you’d see Bill McCreary on Fox, Gil Noble doing Like It Is, the Amsterdam News — you realized that there were always different ways to find a story.

I had a different perspective, even within that media market, of how people would be covered and what was important to them. I always wanted to ask that next question and why things were the way they were. At that point, you would think that I would’ve gotten a degree in journalism, which is what my English teachers at school wanted me to do. But I wanted to get an architecture degree, and I went to Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia.

After, I served as a Main Street coordinator in the city of Birmingham, Alabama. At that time, Birmingham was still a two-newspaper town — the Post-Herald in the afternoon and the Birmingham News in the morning. I saw that cadence help people stay informed about what was going on in the city, and honestly, it made it easier to do my job. But then, the Post-Herald was shut down with one days notice. That left some gaps in coverage.

So, there was this blogging thing that was going on at the time, and I had been reading some of them because I realized how helpful they were. I ended up starting a hyperlocal site in Birmingham called The Terminal in 2007 — I thought I was only going to be doing it for 2 or 3 years. But 5 years later, I had an online news site that was competing with all the other publications in the city.

WF: When did you start to think about collaboration in journalism?

AN: The importance of understanding a community was one of the reasons I got back into journalism — knowing what was going on in the street, having deep conversations with folks, making sure they have a way to be properly represented, finding ways to amplify their voices and grow and serve communities to the best of our ability.

There was a lot of unofficial collaboration between the hyperlocal outlets, sharing stories and resources across different neighborhoods and cities. But the first time I really thought about collaboration was after the Birmingham News reduced their print schedule from daily to just three days per week. What if everybody who was currently printing shifted their schedule to fill in for those gaps? How could you bundle that as a single subscription that benefits everybody, and give people a chance to be exposed to different types of news? It didn’t go anywhere, but that got me thinking about what was possible.

Then, I lucked out and got to work for one of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting collaboratives in Birmingham. I talked to the partners and helped think through how to leverage what everybody had online while growing deeper conversations offline. That has stuck with me to this day.

The power of collaboration is understanding where your blindspots are — and having them filled by others in a way where no one is worried about getting the most clicks — but rather how the community gets best served. A true collaboration is about finding ways to lean in to what you do best while recognizing there are certain things you can’t do.

WF: What are you up to at MuckRock as a collaborations editor?

AN: MuckRock is a collection of platforms that allows you to file public records requests without needing to know all the legal details. DocumentCloud allows you to share those documents and any other documents you think should be in the public realm to analyze collaboratively on journalism projects. We’ll try to identify partners to help in these investigations, as well as encourage more people to be open and transparent in their process as they’re working on these projects.

The assumption is that the vast majority of users are journalists. But honestly, a lot of users are the general public, academics, lawyers. We’re hoping to build more trust and communication, and make sure folks are aware of everything that is possible on the platform. I also think a lot about how we disseminate news and information. Not everybody has a really great internet connection, or can download stuff at a moment’s notice — how do we think about lack of access to high speed internet? How do we make sure that as many people as possible have access to this information, so they can live their lives in the best way?

There have always been barriers to news and information. Collaboration is one of the best ways I know to knock down the majority of those barriers. If you approach the problem you discover in a meaningful way, you’ll be able to go ahead and know the best way to get this done.

WF: You’re also a part of the Tiny News Collective team — how is your work there looking ahead to try and build a more sustainable future with collaborative journalism?

AN: Tiny News Collective starts from the perspective of providing those things that aren’t always easily accessible when starting a news organization — which you probably aren’t thinking about when you get started. What kind of tech stack do I need access to? How do I approach the business side? How do I become sustainable regardless of what this becomes? Who else is on a similar journey so I can share my experiences with them and think through solutions?

I’m always partial to that last one. It’s one of the most important parts of tackling the challenge of starting a news organization of any sort. I was grateful to have been stumbled upon by Michele McLellan when she first started her research. There are many from that original list I still speak with often as I continue to navigate journalism. It took me nearly 5 years to find them. I don’t want the next set of folks to have to wait that long to find their tribe.

It’s also important to know what will work and what won’t as one seeks to best serve their community as a news and information source. My biggest hope for TNC in the long term is that it provides the space and runway necessary to experiment and see what works. I’ve told many folks that if a news organization remains involved with TNC, and figures out its best solution for providing news and information means that digital is a tool and not simply a vehicle for delivery based on the needs of your community, we’ve still accomplished our goal as an organization.

WF: How have you seen collaborative journalism change over time and what have been some of your biggest lessons or learnings?

AN: There is a clearer understanding of what roles and responsibilities are, and what we’re committing to as part of the process. We’ve also done a better job at understanding who we serve and identifying where those gaps are so we know which partners to bring into collaborations. There is no one size fits all solution for all of this. I think that we still think there’s a perfect way to do this, or one correct way to do collaborative journalism. But it’s going to differ.

You have to start at the baseline: Who are you serving? Why are you serving them? What is the best way to get that information to them? That should guide how you’re approaching the collaboration. This also opens you up to different types of collaboration, with various partners in the community. It will always be iterative — there is no way to get perfection. That is something I’ve learned a lot. Strive to do the best job you can, not perfection.

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Will Fischer is a journalist covering the intersection of technology and media. He’s worked for Business Insider and New York magazine, and conducted local news research for City Bureau. Follow Will on Twitter @willfisch15 or email him at willfisch15@gmail.com.

About the Center for Cooperative Media: The Center is a grant-funded program of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. Its mission is to grow and strengthen local journalism, and in doing so serve New Jersey residents. The Center is supported with funding from Montclair State University, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, the New Jersey Local News Lab (a partnership of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, and Community Foundation of New Jersey), and the Abrams Foundation. For more information, visit CenterforCooperativeMedia.org.