The initiative: the Pascal Decroos Fund
Wobbing.eu was a project of the Pascal Decroos Fund for Investigative Journalism (FPD), the organisation that later changed its name to Journalismfund Europe. The initiative was taken in 2007 and initially received support from the Flemish government. The website went online in the autumn of 2008.
The aim: knowledge, network and cross-border research
Wobbing.eu's purpose was threefold:
- Gathering and sharing knowledge. The site brought together information on transparency legislation across the countries of the European Union: a step-by-step guide to using that legislation at EU level and in a number of member states, with links to existing handbooks for other member states.
- Supporting journalists and citizens. The underlying idea was that hard, reliable facts — obtained through FOI requests — enable proactive rather than reactive journalism, and help citizens scrutinise politics and public administration.
- Networking at a high level. Wobbing.eu brought together Europe's best "FOI journalists" to generate both stories and knowledge, while also serving as an entry point for anyone in Europe wanting to work with freedom of information legislation.
Growth and recognition (2008-2009)
In 2008, the FPD organised the first "Eurowobber" gathering, bringing together roughly twenty of the best FOI journalists from the European countries where FOI requests could actually yield results. That first gathering was supported by the Open Society Institute Media Program. A year later, in 2009, a second Eurowobber meeting was held in Utrecht, again with twenty participants, this time with financial support from the European Journalism Centre in Maastricht.
Those gatherings quickly established Wobbing.eu as a well-functioning network able to move fast and operate at a high level, both journalistically and legally, with excellent contacts across a large number of media outlets. Within a year of its launch, the platform was described by the director of the European Journalism Centre as "next to Statewatch, the most important site you should be looking at." Wobbing.eu was also invited to an event at the European Parliament in Brussels marking the second anniversary of the .eu domain, as one of seven organisations singled out for recognition there, and was given a place in an advisory network for EURid, the manager of the .eu top-level domain.
From the autumn of 2009, Wobbing.eu received a one-year grant from the OSI Media Program to refine the website, strengthen the network and carve out its niche among other players in the field — among other things, by sharing news rather than duplicating it. In November 2009, the platform, together with the Dutch-Flemish Association of Investigative Journalists (VVOJ), organised a two-day international conference for European FOI practitioners in the press: "Wobbing in Europe 2009," held in Utrecht.
From Eurowobber gatherings to Dataharvest
The annual Eurowobber meetings turned out to be the seed of something bigger. Out of those gatherings grew, in 2012, the European Investigative Journalism Conference & Dataharvest, formally founded in 2011. Dataharvest brought together three networks that had until then largely operated separately: journalists, coders and FOI specialists. The conference was organised by Journalismfund Europe, Wobbing.eu and Farmsubsidy.org, with the aim of creating a space where these three worlds could learn from one another, exchange practices, make contacts and develop stories together.
What ultimately became of the platform
Wobbing.eu still exists today as a website, but no longer under the wing of Journalismfund Europe. The function Wobbing.eu once served — bringing Europe's FOI journalists together around FOI knowledge and cross-border research — lives on chiefly through Dataharvest/EIJC, which has grown into a recurring conference for investigative journalists in Europe and which, through Journalismfund Europe, remains closely tied to the organisation that once founded Wobbing.eu.