“Some stories can get killed without the right network”

Hi Stefan. Thank you for taking the time to answer some questions on the European Investigative Collaborations project. First things first: what is the EIC?

The EIC is a European network aimed at the joint reporting and publication of investigative journalism.

How does it differ from other, similar networks?

It doesn’t bring together only mainstream media, or only non-profits. In that sense it is a hybrid network, making the connection between smaller non-profit platforms and big media. Also, it is not a one-off collaboration around one specific story or project. And finally, it doesn’t want to focus on just the EU, but on Europe as a continent, including eastern European countries that might not be part of the EU yet.

How does the collaboration work in practice?

We meet every now and then to discuss stories and work on specific projects. The idea is to get in sync in the way we work; with the tools we use and the resources we have. But at the same time we don’t want to wait too long before publishing. That is also why we encourage bilateral or trilateral collaborations in the network. Stories where only several members are involved, in order to allow members to benefit from this network in a faster way without the whole network having to be involved.

You have already published one major story, #EICArms.

That story came about after a meeting at the end of last year. The essentials concerning the network had been agreed on, so then we started bouncing ideas off each other. How easily are guns available for big terrorist attacks like the ones in Paris that at that time had just happened? And then we took it from there.

What is the advantage of a such network, especially for bigger outlets like Der Spiegel? What’s in it for them?

Each partner had its own expectations and experiences coming into the project. Der Spiegel, for example, is often involved in networks or collaborative stories. I recall the diplomatic cable leaks in 2010, for which Spiegel was one of five big media to break the story, together with The Guardian, El País, The New York Times and Le Monde. They were also involved in the Snowden publications. So for Spiegel, the reason to join the network was not to get access to big stories like that. For them it’s more about benefiting in other ways. Having the chance to collaborate with local journalists instead of sending out their own people, for example. They understand that that is important.

Also, because we’re not an NGO or an official organisation, but rather an informal network of partners, we don’t have to deal with lots of the things that tend to cause delays if you’re working in a more rigorously structured environment. That allows us to act on relevant stories more quickly, if needs be.

You mentioned that the initial idea for a such network was formed at the Dataharvest Conference?

Yes, in 2015 – although, as always with these kinds of interactions, I have to say that it was a long proces, partly conceived there, and partly at previous Dataharvests and other conferences. The Dataharvest is a place where new stuff is tested, where people with different skills and perspectives sit around to talk about ideas or possible stories. In a way, networks are sort of an extension of that, a place where those ideas can be put into practice.

Anyway, at some point we realised that there was no real network in Europe such as the ICIJ in America, and that some stories, strictly European stories, can’t be put under existing networks. These kinds of stories can get killed if you don’t have the right network to do them. So we felt that there was a need for something like the EIC. And of course that doesn’t mean that it will necessarily conflict with other networks or parallel projects done under different structures.

Why is it so important for the journalism community to get together every now and then?

I can tell you why it’s been important for me. I’ve been doing this for fifteen years. At the time, in Romania, we didn’t have access to information, but we realised we could get it from outside. So working together with colleagues was simply a way for me and other Romanian journalists to get access to information that was difficult to find in Romania.

But of course there are other advantages. You get access to the various languages spoken in a specific location, access to the various journalism, research and publishing traditions. In the end, you always get a better product if you can benefit from several backgrounds and from more expertise, not just for the story itself, but also for by-products such as visualisation or communication.

In our case, some of the partnering newsrooms agreed to put their information designers at work on the project. They built an interactive visualisation that could then be tweaked by the different partnering outlets for their own particular country.

Final question. Can you tell us anything about the EIC’s upcoming publications?

I can say that our aim is to publish every three or four months. But of course you never know. Sometimes these sorts of thing start off rather slowly, but then the ideas start flowing and keep coming. And then it’s a question of finding the right workflow.