Accessibility Settings

color options

monochrome muted color dark

reading tools

isolation ruler

Stories

Topics

MOUs: How to Get Everyone on the Same Page for Collaborative Projects

Read this article in

Русский

Image: Pexels.com

As collaborative journalism becomes a common practice across the media industry, news outlets need clear documentation to guide their projects.

We study and promote collaborative journalism at the Center for Cooperative Media, and recently we’ve gotten several requests for examples of partnership agreements, legal contracts or memoranda of understanding that others have used to run collaborative projects.

We’ve compiled six different examples from a wide variety of outlets, including radio, TV and print. You can find links to download each below:

Reading through the documents linked above, you will see some clear differences; some are MOUs with easy-to-understand language while others are legal contracts. But you’ll also see a lot of clear trends and shared language.

Almost all of the documents specify the following, which is important to remember if you’re building this kind of document for your news organization:

  • Purpose and scope of the project
  • Timeline or duration
  • Decision-making
  • Distribution, publicity and promotion
  • Branding
  • Financial concerns
  • Ownership of content or IP

The Center for Investigative Reporting’s MOU has several other things that struck me as important: Its document also covers shared ethics, award submission and confidentiality.

At least one large organization I reached out to declined to share their agreement, and a couple others said they don’t use written contracts. ProPublica is probably the most noteworthy example, as it doesn’t do agreements, partner manager Rachel Glickhouse told me. Instead, the organization relies on direct conversations with partners to iron out details in cases like Documenting Hate.

Jean Friedman-Rudovsky, co-executive director of Resolve Philadelphia, said that the usefulness of an MOU in a project of her size  —  one with many partners  —  it mostly to set initial guidelines and get everyone on the same page when the project launches.

“However, if a collaborative project has a strong foundation  —  meaning good channels of communication, trust among participants, and high energy level among partners  —  you may never have to look at the MOU again,” Friedman-Rudovsky said. “Any problems or obstacles or missteps can be worked out through respectful conversation, rather than holding people accountable to a document.”

We hope you find these documents useful as you work on collaborative projects of your own. We’ll archive these and add others at collaborativejournalism.org/guides.


If you have a partnership agreement, contract or MOU you don’t mind sharing, send it to Stefanie so she can add it: murrayst@montclair.edu. This post first appeared on Center for Cooperative Media’s Medium page and is cross-posted here with permission. The Center is a grant-funded program of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University in the US state of New Jersey.

Stefanie Murray is director of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University. A Michigan native, she worked in Michigan and Tennessee as a reporter, editor, digital media manager and news executive. Before joining Montclair State, she worked for Gannett as vice president and executive editor of The Tennessean.

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Republish this article


Material from GIJN’s website is generally available for republication under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. Images usually are published under a different license, so we advise you to use alternatives or contact us regarding permission. Here are our full terms for republication. You must credit the author, link to the original story, and name GIJN as the first publisher. For any queries or to send us a courtesy republication note, write to hello@gijn.org.

Read Next

Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips

What’s in a Name? Investigating People Across Borders

It’s increasingly common for criminals to operate across borders. So investigative reporters also need to know how to identify and investigate people whose names use different alphabets, are formed by unfamiliar conventions, or carry unexpected cultural signals. Read these tips from the OCCRP on best practices for investigating names from outside the English-speaking world.

Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips

5 Tips for Using Academic Research in Investigative Journalism

Academic research is a crucial tool for investigating societal problems and holding the powerful accountable. Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Neil Bedi, criminologist Rachel Lovell, and Denise-Marie Ordway of The Journalist’s Resource share practical advice on using academic research in investigative journalism.

Reporting Tools & Tips

Asian Journalism Collaborations Break New Ground

Cross-border collaborations allow newsrooms to pool resources and overcome financial hurdles. On the fourth day of GIJC21, journalists based in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, and Malaysia offered tips for conducting successful collaborative reporting projects.

Aerial shot of Thermal, California

News & Analysis Reporting Tools & Tips

Reporting on Climate Injustice in One of the Hottest Towns in America

Climate reporter Liz Weil and visual reporter Mauricio Rodríguez Pons first became interested in Thermal, which is just north of California’s Salton Sea, because it is one of the hottest places in America. They soon realized it’s also a prime example of how wealth inequality is inextricably linked to climate justice.