Collaboration with other newsrooms is central to Outlier Media’s model and our work to fill information and accountability gaps. Our work would not be possible without the help, support and brainpower of public service-minded journalists who have come before us and those working today.
Outlier works with other newsrooms in several ways.
Collaborative Detroit Newsrooms network
Our community includes public service-minded journalists throughout the city. Working and learning alongside these professionals has widened Outlier’s reach and magnified our impact. Our Collaborative Detroit Newsrooms network brings local news organizations together as media partners to produce and share news stories affecting residents who are not proximate to wealth, nor have been historically given broad access to information and provisions that more privileged populations have enjoyed.
We are stronger together. Our newsroom network consistently puts collaboration over competition in the interest of serving and benefiting our community.
Since 2021, we have met monthly to discuss recently published projects, share resources, brainstorm collaborative projects, trade pitches with freelancers and even share costs to make our shared goals come to fruition.
Media partners often hire freelance writers, photographers, videographers, etc., from a shared freelance journalist network developed and maintained by Outlier. Freelancers are invited to our collaborative editorial meetings quarterly.
Detroiters deserve good information about everything affecting their lives as city residents. We collaborate because as individual news organizations, we don’t have the people-power we need to systematically and accurately cover news in this area.
To get more information or express interest in joining the newsroom network, contact Outlier Media Managing Editor Erin Perry at erin@outliermedia.org.
Reporting with partners
Highlights from the Detroit City Council’s budget hearings
Setting a precedent in accountability for juvenile crime
DTE Energy facing oversight of “hardship-inducing” debt collection practices
Air quality data means nothing without community action, Detroiters say
Detroit family tackles asthma with DIY air filters — and measures the results
Delray residents proved right by new study on toxic dust
Working with partners
We also work with local or national publications interested in co-reporting pieces informed by the experiences of our news consumers. Some of our work is available for republishing.
We offer limited consulting with other news organizations interested in better serving the information needs of low-income news consumers.
With a coalition of other founders of local news outlets from around the country, we are developing and piloting value and business models to improve the sustainability of local journalism.
Learning from our model
Our model is a targeted approach to filling information gaps and creating accountability in a fragmented society with fewer high-quality local news options. At Outlier, we have figured out new ways to deliver actionable information and reporting to the people who need it most.
Outlier has developed methods to better answer three core questions:
- As journalists, how can we better identify information needs?
- What makes information valuable?
- What kind of information is most actionable by news consumers?
Outlier is a lean organization and newsroom. We want to prove that delivering high-value enterprise journalism to news consumers of all backgrounds is achievable, sustainable and worthy of investment.
If our work is of interest to your organization, contact Executive Director Candice Fortman at candice@outliermedia.org.