Cross-border journalism is a new method of collaborative journalism. Journalists from several countries investigate jointly a topic that is of high relevance in all countries. They collect and share information that they mutually complement to impart the results to their regional, national and international audiences despite different languages and journalism cultures. Hence, a big advantage of teaming up with other reporters from abroad is that the story can be pitched to a broader range of media platforms and audiences. Additionally, being part of an international journalistic community might grant some degree of protection especially to journalists who work in an authoritarian environment.
In recent years, cross-border journalism projects have attracted a lot of attention. The Panama Papers, revealed in 2016, have been the journalistic scoop of this decade and a prime example for cross-border journalism. Journalists from the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung collaborated with the International Consortium for Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and analysed 2.6 terabyte of data exposing offshore companies linked to more than 140 politicians in more than 50 countries which they received from a whistleblower. More than 400 journalists from nearly 80 countries, working in 25 languages, collaborated in the project.
Other well-known collaborative journalism projects are the Lux Leaks (2014), documenting the special tax deals granted by the government of Luxembourg to some of the world’s largest corporations, the Migrants’ Files (2015), showing how many refugees have really died on their route to Europe, and the Paradise Papers (2017), demonstrating how companies and individuals use tax havens to disguise their assets.
To be able to work in international teams, intercultural skills as well as mutual trust are important. Moreover, competitive thinking is inappropriate or even counterproductive for cross-border reporting.
