How to pitfall-proof newsroom collaborations
Picture this: A group of newsrooms marshal their resources to embark on a new collaboration. The project manager has done everything right, from setting goals to establishing communication expectations and clarifying roles. The future is bright.
And yet.
Something goes wrong. It could be any number of issues. Maybe one of the partners stops responding to emails and ghosts the check-ins. Maybe another partner hit a snag with the editing process, when it’s unclear who has final say over the finished story. It could be after holding months of meetings, there is no noticeable progress.
Journalism collaborations are notoriously difficult. It takes precious time and resources to wrangle reporters and editors from multiple news organizations for a project or series. Any snags are felt deeply. They’re also inevitable.
The good news is there is a proven model that transforms the challenges of journalism collaborations into valuable insights.
I get it. I’ve worked with more than 130 newsrooms over the past six years on collaborative and audience engagement projects. I have bad news and good news for anyone embarking on a collaboration.
The bad news: No matter how well you prepare for an ambitious project, it’s likely you’ll have problems along the way.
The good news: There is a proven model that transforms all those challenges into valuable insights.
Under James Nottingham’s Learning Pit framework, the drawbacks of collaborative journalism are no longer bugs, but features. This article takes insights from Nottingham and three journalism collaborators to explain how news outlets can harness the framework to strengthen journalism collaborations.
The lessons of productive struggle
Nottingham, an author, consultant and educator, developed the Learning Pit framework in the mid-1990s. It’s based on research showing that students learn more deeply if they struggle productively with concepts. His company works with pre-K-12 schools and community groups in seven countries to raise students’ aspirations and achievements.
The idea of productive struggle is key here. A teacher intentionally guides and supports students into the learning pit — moments where they are grappling with conflicting ideas — to make learning more thought-provoking and challenging. For a journalism collaboration, the project manager or editor fills that role by helping reporters navigate problems that come up with their collaborative projects.
Nottingham explained that the pit is particularly well suited to complicated work, including collaborations.
“The idea that something would work the first time is almost madness,” he said. “It’s going to be messy. It’s going to be complicated.”
Improving performance first requires a performance dip, he said. That is the learning pit.
As Nottingham lays out in his book The Learning Challenge and at learningpit.org, once someone is grappling with a concept in the learning pit, they can follow these steps to increase their understanding:
- Conflict — Identify contradictions, explore the options.
- Construct meaning — Strive for meaning, connect and explain.
- Consider your learning — Enjoy clarity, apply and relate.
Not every project requires going through this process. Sometimes, Nottingham notes, it’s best to just meet deadlines and move on.
But to reap the benefits of learning, teams need to push through those setbacks to grow.
“Success is not straightforward at all,” Nottingham said. “If it was straightforward, every one of us would be successful in every single field or with every endeavor that we wanted to be successful at.”
Research shows that this framework builds resilience, allowing for deeper and more urgent thought, and helps people be more judicious and deliberate in their work.
The first stage, identifying the concept collaboration participants are struggling with, is the point of sliding into the pit. It takes action to climb out the other side smarter and stronger.
Resolve conflict through inquiry: ‘All of our answers questioned’
Dianna Hunt had a problem.
While reviewing stories for At the Crossroads, an Institute for Nonprofit News collaboration examining the state of the economy in Indian Country, she noticed two partners had taken similar angles. A bit too similar.
Hunt, national editor and coach for ICT, was the editorial lead on the series with 10 newsroom participants. She’d been regularly checking in with each newsroom involved, but the overlap didn’t become apparent until the stories started to develop. How had this happened, and how could she address it now?
Nottingham talked about the cognitive “wobble” that arises at this phase of the pit. A spirit of inquiry is essential here. As he explained in “The Learning Challenge,” “not all of our questions answered but all of our answers questioned.”
In practice, this means being inquisitive when stumbling upon a problem in collaborations. Where is this coming from? How did it happen? What does every person involved think happened?
For Hunt, it meant understanding how to preserve the angles the newsrooms had pursued while finding a way to incorporate them into the larger series. As the lead of the project, she was able to identify the conflict early enough to step in.
“Don’t wait until the last minute to understand how the reporting is shaping up,” she said. “You can avoid duplication of effort or other conflicts through regular conversations with the partners about how things are going, how the story is developing and the important information they have gathered.”
Conflict at a glance
In this stage: Discover a challenge in how people are thinking about a concept
Example: How can we move forward with two stories sharing the same angle?
What to do:
- Ask questions
- Encourage dialogue and cognitive “wobbles”
- Give people time to respond thoughtfully
Construct meaning: Climbing out of the pit
The next stage in the learning pit process is to use what’s uncovered through inquiry to improve future understanding.
For Ken Paulman, that meant reckoning with how to move forward after a promising partnership came up short.
Paulman, director of the Energy News Network, was used to running collaborations without a formal structure in place, with the intention of leaving space for stories to evolve and change direction. But with one partner, despite strong communication and good intentions all around, the project fell apart. There were no written agreements to ensure everyone was on the same page.
“What I learned from that is you have to have structure,” Paulman said. “Even if you don’t feel like you have to have structure, you have to have structure.”
Paulman applied that lesson to Energy News Network’s next project by using a contract that spells out deliverables and requires regular check-ins. Now, he said, he’s better able to avoid misunderstandings and create efficiency and clarity for everyone involved.
Sometimes at this stage, collaboration participants will reach what Nottingham calls a eureka moment: when they understand something new.
“The eureka moments are almost always through collaboration,” Nottingham said.
“The vast majority of us have got a sense of what we know, and we follow that path. It’s only through collaboration that people say, ‘Well, actually, there’s an alternative path here,’ or ‘There’s a different way of looking at it,’ or ’There’s a different issue.’ And then you go ‘Whoa! Hang on a minute,’ and then you start stumbling along.”
Climbing out of the pit, he noted, is not about proving an answer but improving understanding.
Construct meaning at a glance
In this stage: Piece together an improved idea based on finding connections, patterns
Example: What structure do I need for a collaborative partnership?
What to do:
- Continue to encourage dialogue
- Use tools such as ranking, diagrams or tables to compare ideas and opinions
- Pair people who have had a breakthrough with those still in the pit
Harnessing insights from challenges
Journalists are not alone in trying to figure out relevant impact metrics for their work.
“Learning is like trying to measure a cloud, and that cloud changes according to the weather,” Nottingham said. Someone can point to how much knowledge a child has on a topic, he said, “but does it change their outlook? Does it provoke them? Does it make them live a better life or a happier life, or more engaged?”
The learning pit allows for addressing those deeper questions. Once there is improved understanding of the challenge faced, it’s important to take time to reflect on lessons learned and where they can be applied in the future.
Nina Ignaczak, founder and editor of Planet Detroit, has learned from her many collaborations to avoid being possessive about the work they are producing.
“It’s not for the faint of heart and it’s not for control freaks,” she said.
Her collaborative work has taught her not to stress about meeting predetermined metrics set at the start, but to let the project develop and see how it unfolds.
As project managers, it’s natural to want collaborations to run smoothly. And at the end of a perfectly produced project, they know just as much as they did at the start. People grow when they’re challenged. That doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to produce mistakes in news reporting, but while pursuing collaborative projects, participants can learn from the mistakes made in the process.
After climbing out of the pit, there is a higher level of understanding. Over time, this growth enables harnessing insights to pursue stronger, better collaborative journalism.
Consider at a glance
In this stage: Reflect on what you’ve learned and how to apply it
Example: How can I let go of control in future projects to see what might happen?
What to do:
- Take time to debrief after projects
- Think about how you might apply your learning elsewhere
Ready-Fire-Aim
Don’t let the pursuit of perfection inhibit trying something new. Try what Nottingham calls the “Ready-Fire-Aim” approach: Make a plan, attempt the new idea, and then reflect with others on what was learned. Note what worked well (plus), what has not worked well yet (minus), and things that would be interesting to find out (interesting).
It takes time, Nottingham says, to build a satisfying learning journey. It may take several attempts to become comfortable managing the learning pit process.
“The icing on the cake is when you’ve been through that learning pit once, then you’ve got a better sense of confidence that you can do it again,” he said. “That’s what builds self-efficacy, that belief that ‘Yeah, I can figure this out.’”
Despite the best intentions, collaborations will experience pitfalls. When addressing those challenges head-on and using this framework to learn from them, it’s possible to transform pitfalls into possibilities.
We may fall. But in the long run, using the power of the learning pit, we won’t fail.
Bridget Thoreson is the director of collaborations at the Institute for Nonprofit News. Interested in learning more about INN collaborations? Reach out: bridget@inn.org.
