Handbook on cross-border journalism

Cross-Border Collaborative Journalism. A Step-By-Step Guide

The Handbook on crossborder journalism is the first of its kind. The book provides a step-by-step introduction to the method of cross-border journalism from idea to publication and beyond. It builds upon own experience of the author and a long series of interviews with the pioneers of crossborder journalism.

The work process of the practitioners is enriched with insigths by scholars of various disciplines of relevance. The book includes numerous examples.

Reviews and quotes:

• Nordicom Reviews, May 25th 2020
• Review by European Journalism Observatory, June 10th 2019
• Quoted in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia on Communication, June 2019.

Do combine the book with the material on the crossborder journalism reading list by Arena Academy.

In short

Journalist, author, lecturer:

Founder and editorial director of Arena for Journalism in Europe, the organisation behind the annual Dataharvest – the European Investigative Journalism Conference and Arena Networks.

Lecturer at the University of Gothenburg.

Current fields of interest:

Cross border and collaborative journalism; innovation in journalism; digitalisation of societies; European affairs and regulation; political economy.

Some previous positions:

2008-2018 Journalismfund.eu, a support structure for in-depth, innovative and independent journalism in Europe. Initially invited to develop the European activities, later chairperson and managing editor.

2008-2012 Freelance cross border journalism with teams of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists ICIJ, own initiative teams and filmmakers.

2004-2008 Four years in Brussels working as EU-correspondent for Danish daily Information.

What I’ve been up to recently

April 2023: The Climate Arena Conference was held for the first time in dear old Prague. 55 journalists from across Europe joined forces for the prototype version of a Dataharvest style working conference – now focusing on climate related topics and bringing scientists and civic techies into the crowd too. See the programme here. Next full conference with about 200 participants will be held in November. City yet to be determined. Follow us on Twitter or subscribe to the Arena newsletter to find out when and where.

March/April 2023: European Collaborative Journalism Project by the Töpfer Foundation supported by Arena had its 4-day kick-off retreat in Siggen by the Baltic Sea. This is a very focused matchmaking seminar where carefully selected journalists join the seminar, embarque on a matchmaking process and end up with a project plan. Previous years cohorts lead to – among others – the Forever Pollution Project or the Money to Burn Project.

February 2023: Massive contamination with the health threatening “forever chemicals” PFAS unveiled today: The Forever Pollution Project publishes its findings across Europe. This investigation was developed for more than a year in a massive cross-border journalism effort. Arena for Journalism in Europe in the autumn of 2022 stepped in to help scale the team from five to 13 countries. Proud and humbled to have been part of this amazing team. Data and data gathering methodology are public, including the methodology of the crossborder collaboration.

November 2022: Retreat with some top-level Danish colleagues from the Cavling Committe, the jury behind the finest Danish journalism award. More than 40 submissions, brilliant examples of Danish journalism in the past year. Material is so good, it’s a painful process to select only a handful nominees – lengthy discussions: tough, interesting, professionally rewarding. Award will be handed out in January 2023.

October 2022: Four days with 72 students in Brussels, they shaped 9 teams to do crossborder investigations over the coming months as part of their journalism education. A major step in crossborder collaborative journalism: This way of working has now come so far that we can develop journalism educations for the next generation. First cohort of crossborder journalism students get a chance to collaborate in a network of three journalism educations from France, Sweden and Germany.