Newsrooms invest in editorial partnerships

It’s taken a long time, but some newsrooms are finally acknowledging that collaboration with other media outlets is worth the long-term investment. And in spite of economic turbulence, newsrooms will continue to pursue and put more funding toward partnerships.

Increasingly, newsrooms are hiring for roles geared toward editorial partnerships. Grist, where I work as partnerships director, has had a role entirely dedicated to partnerships since 2021. Other newsrooms that have a role focused partially or entirely on collaborations include The 19th, the AP, Open Campus, Inside Climate News, The Trace, The Marshall Project, LAist, Canary Media, CalMatters, and the Better Government Association, to name a few. KFF News even has multiple dedicated partnership roles. I also heard from a regional nonprofit newsroom that plans to hire its first-ever partnership role in the next few months. There’s enough of us in this growing niche that a group of us have banded together in a Slack group to share advice and challenges. We manage complex newsroom partnerships, track and promote syndications, and help distribute data to other outlets, among other things.

Startup newsrooms are also embracing partnerships as an audience and reporting strategy. The Examination, which focuses on global public health and is staffed by former ICIJ journalists, organizes partnerships for many of their stories. NC Local, a statewide nonprofit newsroom covering North Carolina, also serves as a hub for local news partners across the state.

While nonprofit news has largely taken the lead in the collaborative space, even for-profit newsrooms are expanding partnerships. In 2023, The New York Times launched a program to partner with local outlets on year-long investigations, and recently announced a new regional reporting center in collaboration with Deep South Today. Headway, a project of the Times, announced a gun violence reporting collaboration in November with Chalkbeat Philadelphia and Minnesota Public Radio. This follows a trend among national nonprofit newsrooms, which are increasingly raising funds to deploy long-term embedded local partnerships, such as Open Campus’ 18-city partner network, Grist’s seven-state Local News Initiative, and The Marshall Project’s joint local newsrooms.

Newsrooms and journalism funders aren’t just investing in this approach because it often yields prestigious awards. They see that by working together, our reporting is more comprehensive, reaches more people, and has a better chance of impact.