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What with the current journalistic climate demanding more information of higher quality for a legion of consumers with shrinking attention spans, news media outlets have had to rethink the methods they’ve used for to deliver the news. Instead of churning out more of the same boring old newsprint accompanied by a few photos, newspapers are focusing more attention on producing multimedia projects to keep people interested and coming back.
The problem is, multimedia is such a new concept for most news outlets, publications are not making enough money to hire individuals already skilled in the trade, or to train those they already employ.
To improve the quality of their publications, many news outlets are turning to collaborations with other news outlets that possess the skills they seek. But considering how competitive the news media once were when in their prime, can partnerships between companies actually work out peacefully?
If the collaboration between The Christian Science Monitor and ProPublica is any indication, then yes, they can.
The Christian Science Monitor teamed up with non-profit investigative journalism site ProPublica to improve Patchwork Nation, a reporting project intended to explore the demographic goings-on in different communities in an effort to learn what is happening in the United States. Patchwork looks at all 3,141 counties in the U.S. and divides them into 12 community types based on specific characteristics, such as racial composition, religion, income level and employment. According to CSM’s Dante Chinni, the brain behind Patchwork Nation, the project is a “reporting tool and a data analysis tool that can be used to better understand numbers.”
“The nation is a complicated place ... The idea is to take reams of demographic data that already exists and use it to identify types of counties, types of communities in America,” said Chinni.
Originally launched in 2008 to cover the year’s presidential election, Patchwork Nation quickly evolved into something more than Chinni expected.
“We started off wanting to get a better understanding of why people voted the way they did,” he said. “As we went along, we found we had something so much bigger than that. It’s about more than understanding votes; it's about understanding the different socioeconomic, political and cultural fault lines in America.”
Chinni said he has always been interested in likenesses and differences in communities, particularly as he travels the country as a reporter for CSM. After he saw a data presentation given by ProPublica’s Jennifer LaFleur, he knew his project could benefit greatly from the skill sets at ProPublica and he sought out LaFleur immediately.
“That stimulus data is huge,” Chinni said. “They take the time and the effort to sort through it by county ... I didn’t know anyone had done that level of breakdown up to then. As soon as I saw it, I knew we had to get a way to get our hands on it.”
According to LaFleur, collaboration between ProPublica and CSM for Patchwork Nation began last summer. She may not have been expecting Chinni to approach her after her presentation, but LaFleur admits she’s not disappointed.
“I hope that every presentation inspires someone to do journalism,” she said.
Because Chinni lacked the time and technical background required to sort quickly and efficiently through the “mountains of stimulus data” that ProPublica can, collaborating with them to utilize their abilities was the wisest option.
According to Chinni, ProPublica’s skilled workers collect different kinds of data relevant to the project and sort it by county. LaFleur said ProPublica analyzes the data using “standard data analysis tools” like databases and spreadsheets.
“We spend a great deal of time making sure the data is consistent and accurate — called ‘cleaning,’” said LaFleur.
Once the data has been cleaned, the product is a summarized version of the data by county, which ProPublica passes on to CSM so they can sort it according to the Patchwork Nation breakdown. This breakdown charts and maps the data, thus making it usable. Chinni said he contacts ProPublica every few months to see what new data they have available.
“(Their mission is) to get that data and pass it on to people,” said Chinni. “What we do with their data and with all data is layer on another level of analysis.”
Once they’ve successfully analyzed and sorted the data, The Christian Science Monitor happily shares findings with ProPublica, and makes certain to keep that information quiet until ProPublica gives them the green light.
So far, Chinni said, it’s been a great collaboration. But as with any project, there are the occasional snags in communication. Fortunately, Chinni said, they are minimal.
“It isn’t perfect, of course,” he said. “There is coordinating and figuring out who goes first with releases. It’s their data. But that never concerns me. I’m fine waiting. We aren’t releasing ‘their data.’ We are releasing our breakdown of their data. So far there have been no major mix-ups.”
Chinni said he believes that because ProPublica is in charge of accumulating the data they use, they probably do the bulk of the work, and for that he respects them. According to LaFleur, all of ProPublica’s work is not without reward.
“Part of our mission is to increase investigative reporting; so by partnering, it increases the amount of it out there,” said LaFleur. “It also helps publicize what we do.”
Without ProPublica’s help, Patchwork Nation may never have become the success it is. In fact, Chinni co-wrote a book about the project, “Our Patchwork Nation: The 12 Distinct Types of Communities That Make Up America (And What They Can Teach Us),” set to be released in late September. Chinni will also be teaching a political coverage course based on Patchwork Nation at American University in Washington, D.C., next fall.
American University won’t be the only learning facility with ties to Patchwork Nation, either. Lee Banville, professor at the University of Montana School of Journalism in Missoula, Montana, currently oversees two journalism students working on a Patchwork Nation project through the University. The project makes UM the first college in the country to get involved with Patchwork Nation.
“We’re sort of pioneering the student journalism side of it,” Banville said. “It’s nice for UM to get to lead the way.”
While Patchwork Nation breaks the nation down into counties, Banville wanted to go smaller and cover an individual community to “get at what’s really going on.” UM students Carly Flandro and Rollo Scott are focusing on telling stories from the town of Ronan, Montana, in nearby Lake County, through interviews with the locals. In a county the Patchwork Nation breakdown deems “tractor country,” Ronan was chosen because it represented the county’s statistics better than surrounding communities like Polson, which relies more heavily on tourism than other Lake County towns.
“It’s not too much Polson, it’s not Arlee ... it’s stuck in the middle,” said Banville.
The idea, Banville said, is to observe how national trends like the economy affect different areas, particularly areas that rarely see media coverage, because America’s not all the same.
“What’s going on in Lake (County) is radically different from what’s going on in Philadelphia,” he explained.
Flandro said she likes the idea of getting to know a place really well and seeing how national stories play out on a local level.
“Everyone knows, but doesn’t see how they work out,” Flandro said, adding that it can be tough to think of story ideas for a small town.
The Patchwork Nation data, Banville said, can help reporters start a story, but it doesn’t write the story itself.
“It gives you a different way of tackling the story,” he said. “It gives you a little bit of context so your stories aren’t all anecdotal.”
Like Chinni, Banville will be teaching a Patchwork Nation class at UM in the spring of 2011. The class, he said, will be a political science journalism course that uses the Patchwork Nation idea to report on governmental activity and issues.
As for the future of Patchwork Nation itself, Chinni said he has a few options and ideas. The project, which is funded by about $225,000 in grant money, is funded through the end of 2011. Chinni said he’s “working on building a long-term home for Patchwork now,” and he has several real leads.
“One of two things will happen I think,” said Chinni. “Either Patchwork will be absorbed by another news organization and placed under its wing, or Patchwork will find a third-party home, such as a university, for the longer term that will allow it to keep functioning as it has but will give it a bit more solid-structured support system. You can’t go grant to grant forever.”
