Organising an Online Investigation Team
Last updated on 2015-01-09
About the Book
Journalism has changed: multi-platform, networked, and always on, the modern journalist is expected to be able to write for multiple media across numerous platforms, while collaborating with communities (we used to call them audiences).
The investigation team explained in this mini ebook is all about adapting to that change - and challenging everything you thought you knew.
Originally written for undergraduate journalism students at Birmingham City University, the five roles in the team are designed to develop a particular aspect of newsgathering and production, from multimedia to community management; data journalism to content curation. These will help you to move beyond the 'news reports' you may be used to producing, and develop a range of new skills for a multiplatform age. Along the way you'll be creating something unique to stand out from the crowd of other aspiring journalists.
About the Author
Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. The investigation: pieces building towards a story
- 3. Your investigation team
- 4. Outside of the team: tutors, mentors, peers and networks
- 5. Investigation ideas
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6. The single-issue site
- Setting up your site
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7. Roles in the team - the short version
- The Editor (Ed)
- The Community Manager (CM)
- The Data Journalist (DJ)
- The Multimedia Journalist (MM)
- The Network Aggregator (NA)
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8. The Editor (E)
- What ingredients will your investigation need?
- Who will gather each ingredient?
- But what do I do?
- How to do it
- 7 ways to follow a field you want to investigate
- 1. Prepackaged news
- 2. Corridors of power
- 3. Events
- 4. Reluctant disclosures
- 5. Reports, research and consultations
- 6. Affected communities
- 7. Experts and observers
- A style guide for collaborative journalism
- 1. Write ‘news that I can use’
- 2. End your posts with a baton that others can pick up
- 3. Create momentum by posting small things, often, as you move towards your target
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9. The Community Manager (CM)
- 6 ways to get started in community management
- 1. Know where the communities are
- 2. Look for problems to solve
- 3. Be interested – listen and ask questions
- 4. Create content out of the process of discovery
- 5. Link, retweet, attribute and comment
- 6. Read about community management
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10. The Data Journalist (DJ)
- Step-by-step: How to start in a data journalist role
- 1: Brainstorm data that might be relevant to your investigation or field
- 2. Learn advanced techniques to obtain that data
- 3. Pull out the parts of data relevant to your field/investigation
- 4. Add value to the data
- 5. Communicate the story in the data
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11. The Mobile and Multimedia Producer (MM)
- How to get started as a multimedia journalist
- Step 1: Look for multimedia opportunities in your journalism
- Step 2: Plan and practise
- Step 3: Improve the technical side with an understanding of principles
- Step 4: Start simple, and go from there
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12. The Curation Journalist (CJ)
- How to be a Curation Journalist
- 7 ways to follow a field you want to investigate
- 1. Prepackaged news
- 2. Corridors of power
- 3. Events
- 4. Reluctant disclosures
- 5. Reports, research and consultations
- 6. Affected communities
- 7. Experts and observers
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13. Further reading
- Resources on newsroom organisation
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