Keynote address by Marina Walker Guevara (CJS2022 Day 2)

8:28PM May 23, 2022

Speakers:

Stefanie Murray

mago torres

Marina Walker Guevara

Keywords:

collaboration

journalists

panama papers

journalism

story

newsrooms

colleagues

people

share

questions

students

country

network

partners

world

trust

center

journalistic

pulitzer center

learning

Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Stephanie and the team of the center of comparative media and everyone that has worked to make possible the collaborative journalism summit this year. And I am deeply honored and excited to introduce you to these years key speaker, Marina Walker Guevara. I want to start with a very short story. I moved to the US seven years ago, and Marina was the first person who reply one of my emails and welcome me to meet the journalist and the work that they were doing an iCj and I felt like so welcome from day one that I was able to meet people. And since then i i keep crossing paths with Marina and learning from her in every possible way from one on one conversations to hearing her in a when she speaks in panels, where she shares on Twitter and also just like how she communicates such I just want to invite you to do enjoy the generosity of someone that is so. So smart, so disciplined, so professional, and just so thoughtful in how it is changing, and has created a big change in how we do journalism around the world. In the official presentation, I want to say my negative ad at MIT net Welcome to give a shout out. He's a Pulitzer Center Executive Director before joining the center, she was deputy director at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists iCj where she managed two of the largest collaborations in history in journalism, the Panama Papers and Paradise papers that involve hundreds of journalists that use technology. And I want to add to that thought, was a learning process for journalists who embrace that technology to to unravel it stories of public entries from terabytes of leaked financial data into that I also want to share that teachers journalist of how to understand these complex financial data, she had a she was instrumental instrumental in developing a model of large scale collaboration. She works has worked very hard to present reporters who used to be competitors to work together. And I think also to not only fall in love of working together, but just recognizing how important and changing it is. So I would give Medina the time it very soon, but I just want to invite everyone to share your questions and in the q&a section of soon as the as a as GC speaking, we will, we will start looking at them. And if anyone is comfort is more comfortable writing your questions in Spanish, feel free to do it. Apologize, I cannot offer that in another language. But we are doing our best. So with that, Medina, the floor is yours.

Good morning, everyone. And thank you so much, Margot. There is like really nobody I would rather share this morning with and thank you. Thank you so much for your kind words. And I'm so glad to be here today with this vibrant and resilient community of journalists and innovators. Thank you so much, Stephanie. Thank you to the Center for Cooperative Media for bringing us together for your fellowship for your leadership. So we can reflect on our craft this morning. Collaboration, as Michael says, has anchored my experience and my career in journalism, and allowed me to do things that I basically never thought were possible. And speaking of impossible ventures I would like to share with you want to start this morning with an anecdote from another discipline that has resonated deeply with me as I reflect on our achievements and challenges in journalism. On April 10 2019, astronomers at the Harvard Center for Astrophysics declared at a press conference, we have seen what we thought was unseeable, they were referring to the first ever photograph of a black hole, something that until that point had been considered impossible, because to accomplish that, the scientists would have needed a telescope the size of the Earth. So instead 200 journalists, not journalists, scientists, joined forces and created a network of synchronized array radio telescopes that were set to focus on the same object at the same time, and act as a giant virtual telescope. So the more telescopes involved, the sharper the image. As the New York Times put it at the time, the scientists had to adjust the telescopes to work together. They had to get the timing right, they had to hope that the weather would cooperate in multiple places at the same time. Imagine that. And yes, they had to hope that nothing broke in the process. It sounded crazy. But it worked. So now let's think about journalism. And how that kind of cooperation and ingenuity grounded in trust and a little bit of crazy has allowed us to overcome our limitations, break new ground, and tackle the stories that we thought would be impossible to do. Go no further than the current global pandemic of the past two years, whether by choice or by force, stack at home, journalists have found bold and creative ways to cooperate across newsrooms and borders, discovering in the process, a new sense of journalistic solidarity. We use mapping and other digital tools to overcome mobility restrictions. we cooperated with other disciplines, scientists, artists, educators, to get the context and the nuance that makes a story not only compelling, a truly relevant to the communities most affected. As we gather here today, docents of our colleagues are cooperating across newsrooms and borders, including Ukrainian and Russian journalists working hand in hand to track Russian oligarch acids, to unravel global networks of propaganda and disinformation and to document war crimes. So when humankind is at its lowest, as it sometimes has felt in the past few weeks and months. Journalists who ground their practice in collaboration are best positioned to tell the crucial stories of our time. They know that these stories transcend us. They transcend our competitive instincts, our newsroom politics, and yes, our own egos. So they use the technology in a smart ways. And they band together, they band together for the sake of truth, to bear witness together. And to get a sharper image, just like those scientists chasing the black holes, a sharper image of the crisis that will change not only our lives today, but the lives of generations to come. So maybe this is a good moment to pause and appreciate what a radical proposition collaboration is, in the context of journalism.

Just think about all the things that we had to unlearn in order to put radical sharing at the center of our reporting. For how long journalism's whole ethos revolved around hoarding information, scooping others, and getting ahead along. The thing is the world got complicated, interconnected and increasingly more dangerous. And so the the story is that the lone wolf reporter was trying to tackle in glorified isolation. How do you follow the money across doses of tax havens jurisdictions where secrecy and opaqueness are protected by law? How do you track commodities from the depths of the rainforest in the Amazon, to the global markets, to luxury fashion and cars in the US? How do you investigate algorithms that are developing chips in Silicon Valley, maybe Shanghai, but the data they are trained on is labeled in the Philippines, and it's used to develop models and then deployed in countries around the world. We journalists realized that we needed our own network to investigate these complex networks and systems. I was fortunate to be part of one of the first attempts at organized journalistic collaboration. Most people learn about the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists when we published the Panama Papers in 2016. And they were a little surprised to learn that the network had been around since 1998. building this network indeed took several years of trial and error, and learning our old methods, tinkering with technology and crucially, learning to trust one another. So here's the definition of trust that resonates with me. Trust is the confidence or trust is confidence in the face of risk that the other person will do the right thing. Trust is confidence in the face of risk that the other person will do the right thing. We need to be certain in the face of risk or pressure, that our collaborators will do the right thing of serve embargo, protect the sources, give appropriate credit, follow our security protocols, and of course, do their share of the work. Ultimate, ultimately, trust is the foundational stone that determines whether a collaboration thrives or crumbles, there is no digital tool or coordination strategy that can overcome a lack of trust. So developing that deep trust that is anchored in share values involves, at the very beginning, peeking your partner's right. My advice based on my own mistakes and successes, look at the whole person, not only the journalistic skills or the track record in journalism, self awareness, humility, and ability to put oneself in somebody else's shoes, optimism. These are all invaluable traits that can help you overcome the most challenging moments in a collaboration. So make sure that you have enough of those qualities in your newsrooms, and in your collaborations. In other words, as my friend Dong RCSs, no brilliant jerks, and I would add, life is too short. So we don't collaborate just out of the goodness of our heart. We do it for the sake of the story, and the audience. We put the story at the center of all of our efforts. Sharing the Panama Papers with 376 other journalists around the world was a decision both practical and philosophical. Technology was only going to help us so much. We needed local knowledge, we needed new ones. And we needed context to interpret the data that only our colleagues in places as disparate as Mexico, Hong Kong, Burkina Faso could bring to the team.

Collaboration can be a powerful equalizer in the media ecosystem, when it centers like para todos equally stellar but that is so overt, often overlooked by national and global media. So when people ask me, what was the key to get these massive collaborations across the finish line, I say the people, the diversity of perspectives, skills, languages, geographies, even even journalistic traditions, and the sense that we were all united and part of something that was big and bigger than ourselves. So we established from the beginning that there were no hierarchies among partners, everyone had access to the same data and resources, and everyone was expected to help one another. And to follow the same community guidelines. Whether you worked for the BBC, NPR, or the gutsy Tunisian outlet, Inky father, which I highly recommend, take note in GIFa. There were no fixers in our team, but reporting partners, the word fixer, in fact, was not tolerated. And I hope we quickly agree that is shown should no longer have a place in journalism. We share radically knowing all too well that any mistakes or breaches of trust could not only derail the story, but also the viability of collaboration in journalism. That's what we felt at that time. That was at stake. Some of the memories I share it cherish the most involved colleagues doing the right thing in a small and in big ways for the sake of the team in US colleague who led the request for comment in a repressive country to protect the local partner from possible retaliation before publication. It partner who shared with us that his editors would not willing to play by the rules, thus allowing us to prevent and contain a bad situation before it happened. Here's a journalist who put this story on the collaboration ahead. Above even his own employment an employer are the colleague living in a small country who gave up his job at the public broadcasting system to prevent a possible leak of the Panama Papers finding do during the year long research process. That colleague was Your Highness, Christiansen, and his Panama Papers story brought down the prime minister of Iceland. I am sure your collaborations are filled with similar moments of kindness, courage and ingenuity that allow for the most impactful journalism. But we also know that collaborations are hard. Yes, we know. And that if and if they are managed poorly, they can become a true nightmare. We owe so much to our colleagues who take on the difficult, crucial and often thankless job of managing our collaborations. We need more of you in journalism. You navigate from the tree to the woods and back seamlessly. You keep track and make sense of the complexity that goes into our collective research. You anticipate and manage our conflicts and disagreements, and you keep us all focused and motivated to get to the finish line. So if you are a project manager and facilitator, what a cat herder, thank you so much for your leadership. Please know that you are essential to our profession. And I want to invite everyone in the chat to feel free to share your shout outs. For any collaboration managers or facilitators that you have worked with, that you think are doing an amazing job. Let's give them a really warm shout out. Feel free to share their names. I will share my Waterous She is a wonderful facilitator. I know I couldn't have done it without using Panama Papers and more. I regard collaboration as one of the most significant paradigm changes in journalism of the past 50 years. It has become the new normal, but you know what an extraordinary shift of mindset and approach it took to get us to where we are today.

Many of you were pioneers of these efforts and faced all kinds of scepticism and doubts. You had to work hard to convince others and your own editors that we needed to turn our practice practice on its head because we were missing the biggest stories of our time. You remember the rice eyebrows, the uncomfortable questions, the sheer fear in our letters, face faces. And then you persevered and slowly but surely, we started to see doses of little fires everywhere. Local collaborations, regional networks, even once fierce competitors joining forces to tackle tackle a reporting challenge together. A couple of years ago, the California reporting project showed us how you approach a complex and systemic story like police misconduct, as a collective. You get together with trusted colleagues, and you fire the hell out of police departments. Then you share the documents with your 33 news from partners and write the stories that were hidden for too long. Still, and despite all these amazing successes we know that is there is so much more work that we need to do. And here are a few questions for for us to think about this morning. are we collaborating enough here in our own backyard in an election year, when the core of our democracy the right to vote is systematically challenged and eroded in cities and counties across country and our existing reporting networks and collectives creatively and effectively countering the massive disinformation networks that flourish in our communities amplified by social media, political parties and deductions. And how might we deepen our cooperation with other disciplines? Human Rights researchers, lawyers, artists Make our work even more ambitious, more relevant, and I would add more memorable. At the Pulitzer Center where I work now, we have had the privilege in the past year to support the creation of its 1619 Teacher Network. This is a collective of teachers from dozens of school countries across the country, school districts across the country, who have come together to develop lesson plans based on the New York Times 1619 project. The network network also allows these teachers to support one another amid widespread attacks and legislation that seeks to make the teaching of the history of slavery in America illegal. Big shout out to all these teachers, these brave teachers, who not only doing really hard and important work, but that have discovered in this network and discovered in working together in your sense of opportunity, possibility, and resilience. The challenges we face are perhaps bigger than in any recent memory. But the different is that at this time, we journalists are better equipped to tackle them. A sense of solidarity and possibility has permeated the media ecosystem in Chicago and in California, in Texas in New York, and it means we all have gone through a lot in recent years. And yet there is this great momentum and synergy of peoples of ideas and methods. What is going on in our profession reminds me again of those scientists coordinating their telescopes from different corners of the earth to finally see what was unseeable. Remember, the more telescopes, the more the more people working together, the sharper the image of the black hole, as long as there was discipline, coordination, trust, and yes, a little bit of luck. So I am counting on this community. I am counting on your journalistic ingenuity and courage to give us a sharper image of our dwindling democracy. a deeper conversation about the enduring legacy of racism in our country, and bolder ideas on how we might create a more equitable, inclusive and sustainable media industry.

Here's to hoping that we can continue to reach for the impossible, and the unseeable with new tools, deeper determination, and more collaboration. Thank you so much.

I'm, thank you, Medina. I don't know how everyone feels but I just feel that I need to take about five seconds just to process a little bit the emotion of these of these words that you have shared with us. I, I see that questions are coming in. I'm gonna start with the first question. And we'll be there moving with the with the ones that the audience is are starting to share in in in the chat. Thank you, everyone. I'm still very touched by hearing you Martina. I've always you know. I just want to point you have been part and supported collaborations that bring together different partners with very different realities. You mentioned, for example, Hong Kong, Mexico, Burkina Faso, I wonder if you can share more about how these journalists thread in your experience what you have seen, transform or influence each other's ways of doing journalism.

Thank you so much. I want to thank you everyone. I regard like these collaborations as incredible learning opportunities for everyone. When you know we're when they work well, right when we are coordinating well, when there's when there's trust. We are in all the time it's like we are in awe of what others bring to the table. One example that I can offer is from my recent work during the pandemic, we have been supporting quite a bit of work in the Amazon rainforest, you know the destruction of the rainforest that is such an important aspect of the climate crisis. But what we realize is that we were supporting Oh All these journalists working in isolation, on one side, the regional journalists in the, in the Amazon and in other rainforest regions in the world. On the other hand, global media organizations that were also trying to tell this story and raising awareness about what was going on. And at the end of the day, when we talk to those journalists, they were like, none of us is getting impact the local journalists, they said, we are doing God's work. But the impact is very limited. Our governments don't care. And ultimately, these are global supply chains, we need to have visibility elsewhere. And the global reporters, which was really nice to hear that from them, were saying, we don't want to parachute in these places, is wrong to do that. But we also don't even know how to do it. This this is, you know, this is the Amazon rainforest. How do we access this? How do we tell the stories. So during the pandemic, we've brought together these two groups of people, the local the regional journalists in this rainforest regions, and the global journalists, we created the conditions for them to work together, we provided and they provided digital tools that they had been using to follow the money to follow the supply chains to unravel the networks of corruption, and the commodity and showing like how these commodities travel from place, one to place, the and I think that that was one of it, like it has been wonderful to just watch how, you know, these journalists have been able to increase their impact how the local journalists are getting violence. For example, in NBC, not only violence, that first violent in a story then together between a Filipino journalist and in the US journalists following the nickel supply chain, from the, you know, the death of the Philippine rainforest to Tesla in the US. So I think when you ask me, like how how these journalists influence each other is, is all there is is waiting for, for them to have the opportunity to be brought together, these conditions being created for them to start collaborating, because the mindsets are already changing so much around collaboration around the world, there's, there's a predisposition that we didn't have before, we don't have to be convincing people so much, they are ready to do it, if only we can identify what are these crucial stories were just you know, creating those conditions can make a world of difference. And then that's not to speak of the protection. Advantages of working together is stories that will be incredibly dangerous for a journalist in Indonesia, or in other places to tell that now they can do it together with their colleagues, because the global outlets, outlets, in some ways, afford them that kind of protection is not just me, in my little town, going against the mining company, but it's all my colleagues around the world, at the same time, revealing the same truth. So I can see, there's so many layers of how we are learning from one another, learning to respect everyone's skills that, you know, linguistic assets that are abroad in a team when we are collaborating across so many countries and cultures. So I leave it at that.

Yeah. I just want to have a reaction of what you just share. And in my own experience, I remember after a Panama Papers, that was my be international collaboration. When people asked me like, how was it and the only expression that I was able to come with at the time was being there is was just like window shopping, the best journalism practices around the world. I know it's like a very, maybe a very simplistic way of putting what you just shared, but it was just like, how being part how see others work, the challenges that are going through and, and me how that changed is everything right? Like even when you need to ask for a comment for a reaction for a story. In some countries, you need a certain time period of time. And the other is has to be have to be more thoughtful because of the of the danger that that could represent. It's just like, it's,

I love it. Sorry to interrupt, but you got me thinking when you gave the example of the request for comment that that was a very humbling experience for us. And it also talks about another issue we wanted to discuss around power dynamics and also sometimes moving too fast and forgetting to to check with our colleagues about what is what are the cultural and expected practices in their own country. So when we were going for Comment, like, usually what we said is like, we want to be really fair. And we want to give these subjects a lot of time. And I think we started six weeks, we will go in advance, and we give them these questionnaires. And we allow them to review the questions and give their responses. And we felt, you know, so good about that we are being so fair, and we're just doing the right thing. And then everybody in the collaboration is required to do the same. So you go to your, your, you know, precedent, and you go to the Kremlin, and you go, and our Russian colleagues with, like, their wonderfully straightforward manner, like looked at us, and they were like, Are you like, frankly, crazy? Like, do you understand where we live and how we operate? Do you know that, you know, the moment between you ask a question like this, and you publish the actual story, you know, is the most dangerous moment and, and you will disappear? You know, like, the chances of you disappearing after asking about a $2 billion network of hidden money, by people associated to, you know, to the president is, and we just felt so, you know, again, learning communities learning opportunities, they were absolutely right, you know, we were just coming out with our western standard of how we think that journalism should work, and trying to, you know, to impose it in a country with a very different reality. So, of course, we, we change tracks, and we said, well, in places where this approach works with use it, and in places like Russia, we would take something a different approach. And then, so the decision was that the US colleagues would go a few weeks in advance, and, you know, ask those questions, as is our norm, and then the local journalists, and we will protect the non local journalists and do not disclose who we're working with. And then the local journalists will go when they were ready, three or four days before the deadline, which is what they could afford to be really safe. And they also told us, and by the way, we want sent seven pages of questions, because that is, frankly, ridiculous.

Yeah, it's so interesting, what experiences and I'm sure, those who are building local collaborations it can like think about like, the challenges that can be reflected in this way. I want to follow up on that. And it you know, women sharing like how like putting together organizations of different sizes, different resources. And I wonder if you could expand a little bit more on how to embrace and value what everyone brings to the table in collaborations. And you already start mentioning like power dynamics. And whenever you can expand explanatory with more on that.

We try to be mindful that you know, of not reproducing existing inequities and power the dynamics in our networks, being mindful of not reproducing them in our collaborations. And that is something that again, you can't take for granted, you have to be thinking about it. And the more global the collaboration, the more diverse the group of people you are bringing in the journalistic backgrounds and experiences, the more you need to think through how to make sure that really, when we say, we all have a voice, we all have a seat at the table, that people really have a seat at the table. There is a risk of cliques being created where certain partners have more weight than other partners, when they're, you know, you know, media partners who, who have great influence in journalism, can try to get their way or impose, you know, guidelines or deadlines that are not what is best for the whole organ, the whole collaboration. So in that sense, I always think that having an organization that is organizing and facilitating the collaboration, and that in some ways is kind of neutral among many media partners, is really helpful. I know that that's not always possible to have that count. But organization. Coordinating but when it exists, is good, because in the case of ici je or the Pulitzer Center, or many other organizations that are playing these, these roles. The idea is that the media partners would, you know, we would all have to see a little bit of control over, you know, decisions, and that is hard, and that is really hard in journalism and for journalists. But that is what you know is necessary for the collaboration. And we would trust that this will this facilitators will always keep the best, you know, the best for the collaboration and for the team and for the story in their minds, and they will listen to everyone and ultimately make decisions that are going to advance and be for the best of the story. Things to keep an eye out on terms of equity, think about language barriers that can exist in your team. And those are language barriers can even express themselves here in the US when we are working. across different newsrooms and parts of the country. Think about resources that people have, are certain organizations being able to access really advanced corporate research databases, and others don't have that kind of access. And what does that mean, when it comes to the final product? When we have so many different kinds of resources? And how can we make sure that some of those that have that kind of access, in some ways can share with others? Who don't? See, I had make a security issues as well. So who, which, and again, that also plays out here in the US these days. So which journalists are at greater risks? Which journalists can you know, can face harassment, from even from audiences, social media, from local politicians, legal, you know, threats? And how can we anticipate and protect those journalists? So keeping all of these very intentional at all times, I think it helps us all really feel part that we are something that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. Keeps that trust and that morale strong. Yeah,

that's so important when we keep thinking, but it's bigger than ourselves. Thank you. I'm gonna pass to the some of the questions that we have in the in the chat. Um, and the first one that came how can we make it easier from Bernardo moto? I hope I pronounced it correctly. How can we make it easier for people like him, our local organizers, who brought on the ground work to become recognized in the institutions and in their own institutions and in newsrooms, so they can be credit and pay for work when their view helps them. But

I am with you, Bernardo. I think that and that's why I mentioned this a little bit in my speech, I think that we are a little bit late to recognize the importance of the role of the facilitators, project managers, and Collaboration Coaches, it stills, it really worries me when I see people wanting to collaborate wanting to like join this trend as a trend, without realizing what it takes to collaborate, and to create that kind of inclusive and an effective experience for everyone in a collaboration. And that without those project managers without those experienced journalists that are willing to not do their own research, and instead help everyone succeed. Without them, it's just impossible to even start thinking about collaboration. I do see that more and more in the job boards that people are starting outlets are starting to hire collaboration managers, collaborative investigations, editors, as I saw recently, you know, even a post from the Washington Post, along those lines and other media outlets. So I think that little by little is sinking in, maybe by trial and error, that they are realizing that, you know, some of their collaborations didn't go as they expected. And that in part, it was because there was not a strong managers management. And that being an investigations editor, who is in the weeds, and in the rabbit holes, does not equal. Managing the collaboration, that these are different roles, that you know, somebody needs to be totally in the rabbit holes and in the trenches. And then there's the collaboration manager and the project manager that needs to be in the big picture and needs to be caring and looking after the people making sure that those that are a little bit quiet, you know, find out what's going on with them, making sure that the sharing is strong, and so on. So it's taken us a while and it's also a matter of resources, but what can we do you know, just Keep talking in in, you know, conferences like this and every time we can about the importance of these roles in the collaboration, let's not idolize collaboration and talk about it, oh my goodness, yes. Like, that's what we do. And it's so good. Let's talk about what it takes. Let's talk about, you know, when things go wrong, let's talk about the bad experiences that we've had, when there wasn't a person at the helm, when there wasn't a person making decisions, when there wasn't a person to start the bullies in a collaboration, when there wasn't a person to say, now what this the media outlet says, might be good for them, but it's not good for the story, then I think, you know, we just need to have these honest conversations, I don't have any other magic way. And one thing that I tried to do from my work at the Pulitzer Center is when when we are teaching collaborations, before we decide to support them, before we provide the funds and the grant, we ask them to delineate the roles, and we ask specifically about collaboration managers. And if in a few occasions, we have told them, You need to read redo your budget, and you'll need to add a collaboration manager, because this is not gonna work the way that you are proposing it. And sometimes that has meant that we have to give them a little bit more money to support that collaboration manager, but that's okay. Then the the results are so much better. So keep going. And as I said, we need more of you.

Yeah, we have three questions that connect with the roles of universities and in collaborations. So I'm going to share them and I think maybe you're telling me how he was split. But the first one from Sarah, your thoughts on how to Ken? How from, I guess from university, we can grow the next generation of collaborative journalists. Follow by Allison. Question, what are the thoughts of the role of college and university programs in collaborative journalism? And Robin, what are the most important things to think about when a student newsrooms seek to approach a collaboration with a professional organization? So all these three questions?

Oh, my goodness, I'm gonna forget some celebrities. You can tell me what I felt. But I would say I've been really impressed in recent years about like how especially seven journalism schools around the country are really incorporating collaboration to their to the practice of their students. They are creating alliances with outlets outside of the school and side of the state sometimes, and just, you know, just recently, for example, a professor approached me last week, and they said, we like what your team is doing on with this collaborative networks. I have 20 graduate students, they are brilliant, they are diverse. We want to join your collaboration, what can we do? What stories do you have going that we can bring the students along along, we will share the we will join the platforms, we will you know, divide the rules. So there are so many examples as to how our centers that's Berkeley, world, Missouri, with SATA Shipley highest was here, in the chat in the audience, she's leading journalists and students all the time to think about ways in which they can work together. So I think he's just presenting it again, as the new normal. There are assignments, and there are stories that that they're going to be doing on their own. And at the end of the day, they need to have their clips where they have done, you know, 90% of the work themselves. But think about any assignment you're creating, not only like, say do it in teams, but have them reflect and even write a little paper explaining how they are going to work in teams, like, how is this collaboration going to work? What is the process going to be, and then have them share with the class at the end of the experience, not only what they found and what the story came to be, but what was their experience working together? What they learned in the process, who was the coordinator, what tools they use to share documents. I think that you know, just having these people more and more part of the conversation is, you know, the way to just create these mindsets in students. We had a Columbia students, you know, part of the Panama Papers and other future collaborations and those are students to this day. They are leading collaborations in the newsrooms where they are working, so it has given them the experience And it's really inspiring for the students to join, you know, their, their more professional colleagues or colleagues who are already in the industry, and and feel, again that they are treated like it was, and that they are contributing to something exciting and, you know, important.

If I can add something to that, that just makes me reflect in my own experience, it's just, I think that when we are working with students, or see the big investigations, and just like become very ambitious, collaborations doesn't have to start super big. And I think it's just also I think it's something important to say, there are so many forms of collaboration, forming collective projects and cooperating and I think, like, honored all the different sizes in how it can be done, conversations are going to, and you mentioned it, Medina, partnering with different types of organizations, different expertise, and I think it's, it's not always trying to do the next, Panama papers or the next, let's embrace all the different forms that these collaborations can start from the position where we are as students, as educators, as community organizers, and how to do it together. I don't know if I'm, that is

that is my goal, absolutely crucial. They we need to start local, we need to start with, you know, what is closest to the experience of the students? And then, you know, instill the methodologies and, and the the inspiration and then and then they'll go and do everything else on their own.

Yeah. So we are we have three minutes, but I just I don't want to leave out the robin question. What are the most important things to think about when a student newsroom seeks to approach a collaboration with a professional news organization, I think it's just like, sometimes can feel intimidated. I don't know what you can share, think on

define, be very clear with, with the media outlet, what the expectations are, what is exactly that is going to be needed needed from the students try to facilitate ways in which the students can communicate, I would say as much as possible. If there's a collaboration platform, if there's like a way in which the journalists are talking to one another, I would try to encourage to have the students or at least some of the students be part of those conversations on a daily basis. So not have like the professor always be like the intermediary in the conversation, that where the professor's has given them an assignment based on what the journalist told them. So make sure that they are part of the conversation make sure to clarify issues of credit from early on. So how is the student going to the students are going to be credited for their contributions? What happens when they are intensely working on reporting our story, maybe the students had come, I brought to do some no more basic research. But what if a student find something really important for the overall story and ends up working closely with one of the journalist then how is that going to be reflected in the credits? So I think that tells communication over communicate and watch out for the students. So they're not taking advantage of make sure that they are part of all the conversations from the beginning.

We have run out of time. What do you know, this has been so lovely. There are two questions left and I think they're really good. So I'm, I can I will send them to you. And I think we can find a way that Stephanie and the team can share with with the participants. It's about tools, and it's about like thinking about when you want to hire collaborations manager, so I think they're really good. Thank you, everyone for being here. Thank you The Center for the invitation. Marina. always lovely to share space with you. Thank you for our ASL interpreters to this is lovely, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much. My God. Thank you, Marina. I had goosebumps during parts of that conversation. That was one of the most powerful keynotes I think we've ever had at the collaborative journalism Summit. And I'm really grateful for Marino's wisdom, and I can't wait to post that on YouTube and maybe even print her words too because what she shared this morning as something that so many people in our field need to hear