What qualifies as “collaboration” these days?

In the context of the evolving news industry, one way to define collaboration is as something that happens among a group of people in a newsroom, or a group of news organizations pulling stories together around a topic or a geographic area.

Getting that job done efficiently requires a platform.

It takes a system that provides journalists with the means to work together, even if we’re only talking about the print publishing software that replaced razor blades and paste in newsrooms, making it exponentially easier to put out a paper every day.

But, as independent journalists, news organizations, freelancers, bloggers, and commenters all cross paths online and off, it’s clear that it takes more than a content management system to bring together the information your community needs.

Collaboration is evolving.

Here are a few examples of evolving platforms for collaboration in action:

One Type of Collaboration Spot.Us Enables
Spot.Us Blog | March 2, 2010
Important notes from David Cohn on what it takes to build a space for collaborative journalism.

“In both the Mehserle trial and the UC regent investigation Spot.Us has created a platform that allows these various partners to come together. We are an independent third party that is looking out for the interest of all parties. We create a transparent space where money is accounted for publicly. All these things enable this type of collaboration to happen smooth and fast. And that – pushes boundaries.”

Why it’s important: The bit about creating “a transparent space.” Building platforms where collaboration can happen in open spaces instead of conference rooms makes it easy to catalog the motivations of all the players and keep score. Is the collaborative effort equitable? Is it fair? If one party isn’t getting anything visible out of the effort, what’s their reason for participating? I’m reminded of the coworking movement, and of Dave Cohn’s own exploration of the Newsroom Cafe.

How I successfully turned my blog into a book: The Writing
10,000 Words | March 8, 2010
This is just Part 1 of Mark Luckie’s series about turning his running catalog of lists, tutorials, and commentary into a real live book you can pick up at Amazon. Mark’s process has always been an open dialogue with the online journalism community, and these posts continue it.

“When I began writing the book, I thought it would be easy to just take my blog and magically transform it into a book, but I can tell you that there is so much work that goes into creating a project of this magnitude. Blogging gives a writer freedom to write in whatever style they want, with little connection from one post to the other. A book, however, must have a flow and each paragraph, section, and chapter must connect to the next.”

Why it’s important: Mark’s radical transparency about his career path — a form of collaboration with his readers and the online journalism community — has left a breadcrumb trail for talented journalists motivated to make work for themselves as bloggers, consultants, and authors. As more independent operators take off on their own, new models for collaboration across networks of freelancers and consultants are popping up left and right. Speaking of which…

Kinda Sorta Media
Rex Sorgatz and friends have formed what sounds like a merry band of mercenary media types, roaming the streets of New York picking up gigs and staffing contracts with subsets of their network.

“We are a loosely affiliated cooperative of consultants, brand experts, designers, entrepreneurs, media professionals, and technologists.”

Why it’s important: With thousands of journalists leaving newspapers — by choice, buyout, or layoff — there’s a huge opportunity for groups of skilled professionals to transition to freelancing, consulting, and developing products for news organizations that find themselves, well, understaffed for certain purposes. Rex’s project should serve as an example for many groups headed down that road.

The Climate Desk
Reuters | March 9, 2010
Felix Salmon of Reuters announces a collaborative reporting project on the topic of climate change, featuring a group of news organizations you might recognize from last fall’s Copenhagen Collaborative.

“The Climate Desk is a journalistic collaboration dedicated to exploring the impact — human, environmental, economic, political — of a changing climate.”

Why it’s important: Nonprofit and commercial media coming together to work on improved reporting on a global issue? Not sure what could feel more important than that.

A Brief Inventory of “Competitor Collaborations” in the News
jcstearns.posterous.com | March 11, 2010
Josh Stearns notes the trend of inter-news-organization collaboration, most notably at newspapers in places like Ohio, Maine, Florida, and Texas, including mentions of a few projects powered by Publish2.

“Some of these efforts are resulting in exciting new kinds of news, pushing stories beyond what could have been done by any one person, and producing more local news for communities.”

Why it’s important: This is the long list of news organizations bootstrapping their own collaborative networks and figuring out the workflow that’s right for them. But they’re going to need technology to get the job done. A new platform for collaboration.

Want to build your own collaborative link newswire?  Check out how news organizations like the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Spokane Spokesman Review, and The New York Times use Publish2 and get started today.