INVESTIGATIVE AND INTERPRETIVE REPORTING

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING

As the name implies, investigative reports, are those that unearth significant information about matters
of public importance through the use of non-routine information gathering methods. Most day-to-day
reporting involves investigation, but true investigative stories require extraordinary expenditure of time
and energy.

The goal (or purpose) of investigative reporting is to present things as they are, which is not necessarily
as people say they are. Investigative reporters set out to find a deeper reality, to answer questions that
may never have been raised before, or at least have never been answered satisfactorily. Reporting of
such depth requires the one looks at situations from the possible angle, through his own eyes, as well
as those of others. It requires walking all around the subject both literally and figuratively, searching for
the one perspective that shows it best. And sometimes it means getting inside. Ideally, the reporter
begins with an intrinsically interesting subject and develops it as fully as possible.

Investigative reporting means thorough, incisive reporting. It requires the investigative attitude – a
curiosity and pungent nose for news, a lot of hard work, and the ability to tell a story in terms of what
it means to the reader. Research and legwork for the typical investigative piece are (both) expensive,
painstaking and time consuming. At least, a few days and often several weeks may be required to gather
documents, conduct interviews and digest previously published materials. Investigation must therefore
be limited to a subject worth the price. Methods employed for the investigation piece, though may
inspire visions of check-and-dagger operations and dramatic confrontation most investigative reports
consists of painstaking and often tedious checking of public records, documents and other sources.

Investigative reporting has a long tradition in (American) journalism, dating back to the muckrakers at
the turn of the century. But it came into its own with the Watergate revelations of the early 1970s.
Since then, the investigation has become a standard part of the newsroom structure of many
newspapers and radio/TV stations. Much of it is focused on a single objective: ferreting out villains,
usually those in government. The concentration on wrongdoing is not universal, however, many
journalists argue that the methods of the investigative reporter should be applied to all sectors of
society that require examination, explanation and airing, but are hidden from public view.

Bob Greene, investigative reporter for “Newsday” on Long Island, NY and a former president of the
Association of Investigative Reporters and Editors, sees two elements in defining investigative reports:
significant material that someone is trying to hide, and findings that are the reporter’s own work, not
leaked material. That definition would exclude subject matter that no one is attempting to hide, but
that is inaccessible, out of public view and difficult to obtain.

In recent years, investigative reporters have turned their attention to the affairs of private industry,
individuals and organizations. Investigative reporting is based on digging, the scrutiny of records,
documents and files.
To do this, reporters have to know their way through official document. They also rely on sources for
tips and inside information. Investigative reporters seek to uncover materials that people want to hide.
Some cover ups are illegal and some are legal but abusive. By abusive we mean that the practices in
some way hurt people or deny them their rights.

Although some reporters are assigned investigative reporting as a special beat, all reporters are
expected to dig out information on their beats. The reporter who is content to accept handouts and
press releases and who relies on the assertions of authorities without checking them fails to inform
readers and listeners of the full dimension of his beat. Such a reporter can never hope to do
investigative reporting.

Since the Watergate scandal, investigative reporting has come to be looked upon as primarily
concerned with exposing corruption in high places. This connotation is somewhat unfortunate for at
least two reasons. In the first place, it encouraged a few shortsighted reporters to look upon themselves
as self-appointed guardians of the public good and to indiscriminately pursue all public officials,
sometimes using questionable techniques in the hope of uncovering some indiscretion. In the second
place, this emphasis on exposing political corruption distracted attention from the fact that
investigative reporting can concentrate on other topics and perform a valuable public service.

No special attributes are required of the investigate reporter except a sharp, inquisitive mind and
familiarity with the area of his investigation. The investigative reporter seldom plays detective in the
sense of shadowing persons. Rather, his quest more often takes him to public records, where he
uncovers information about which to query interviewees. In print these facts usually speak themselves.

An investigative reporter’s job is to establish the facts that those in power want most to keep hidden.

Definitions and Purpose of Interpretative Writing

At one time in journalism’s recent history, there were only two types of news stories: the spot news or
hard news story and the feature story. Spot news often times also called: straight news, hard news,
breaking news, etc is still predominant in print journalism. But in today’s more demanding newsroom,
spot news and feature are not sufficiently descriptive to classify all the types of news forms (or formats)
being used.

The feature story may be descriptive; a personality profile of the president, a leading movie/TV star or
a local inventor. It may be explanatory: a report on the eating habits of university students. The
distinguishing feature of this story is that it does not have any immediacy such as the spot news have.
There is no compelling time element because the story usually is not based on something that
happened today or will happen tomorrow. Feature stories by their nature are often interpretive.

Interpretative writing therefore covers a diversity of format that are commonly described as depth
reports, a term that gained general acceptance after Neale Copple of the University of Nebraska
published a book called “Depth Reporting” in 1964. Copple defined depth as the opposite of deadline
dictated superficiality. Copple swept aside a lot of semantics over interpretation, feature writing,
backgrounding and investigative reporting and says that we can as well forget about these categories;
depth reporting includes them all.
Depth means thorough, explanatory or descriptive reporting. It requires an investigative attitude, a lot
of hard work and the ability to tell a story in terms of what it means to the reader. The depth report
may be as long as a magazine article, or even longer, but it lacks the subjectivity so often found in
magazine, articles or editorials and other opinion columns.

It may be presented in one piece of it may require a series. It requires a lot of research and legwork: at
least a few days and often several weeks may be required to gather documents, conduct interviews
and digest previously published materials. The typical depth story is “developed news” – what editors
once called enterprise story.

The Advent of Interpretation

The cult of objectivity: Objectivity in journalism is the practice of reporting facts and opinions
accurately; however, it is often not concerned with establishing the correctness of such facts and
opinions. In the classic model of objective reporting, two sides to a dispute are sought out and quoted.
The reporter doesn’t have to determine the truth or falsify of the quotes. Merely, presenting the
opposing views is sufficient. If politician A charges that the National Assembly is being run like a private
club of the ruling party, the reporter doesn’t attempt to verify the claim; deadlines wouldn’t permit the
attempt, even if reporting methods would. Instead, the journalist, goes to politician B and perhaps C
and D as well to get agreement or disagreement, confirmation or denial. The more sources react, the
more credibility is attached to the story even though the truth or falsity of the charge is never
established.

Personal journalism, in which reporters (and writers) presented their own views of the events they were
describing, was the norm in the early days of journalism. But this type of journalism waned in the second
half of the nineteenth century, and virtually disappeared by the early twentieth century.

There are many reasons why the standard of objective reporting displaced personal journalism, but
convenience to the press seemed the most significant.

As sociologist Bernard Roshco points out in “Newsmaking”, objectivity gave the responsibility for
providing news content to sources, thus freeing the reporter from the need to acquire knowledge about
the subject. If the reporter merely witnessed events and recorded them faithfully, any reporter could
handle any assignment and the need for specialists would be reduced.

The technique of objectivity also provided reporters with a defense against charges of bias and error;
attributing “facts” to sources placed the responsibility for their accuracy with them.

Finally, objectivity also provided fixed guidelines for selecting and evaluating news content, thus
allowing reporters and editors to work quickly and with more certainty. Less obviously, the standard of
objectivity insulated reporters and editors from any unwarranted influence in news treatment.
Despite its convenience, however, journalism’s marriage to objectivity has not been without its quarrels
and misgivings. Although objectivity implies fairness and impartiality, it soon became apparent that
there were elusive though idealistic goals. What some consider objective others regards as slanted. The
very process of newsgathering reflects biases of news organizations and their staff: which facts should
be selected, which left out; how should these facts be arranged, which sources and points of views
among many possibilities should be used; in what order should they be arranged; and so on. Reporters
bring to their work certain inherent biases. Their own social class and economic status, their ethnic and
regional inclinations, as distinct from those of other segments of the public, and their perceptions of
their news organizations’ position and biases are two major sources of subjectivity. Another problem is
that the standard of objectivity transferred news decisions from journalists to their sources, thus,
imposing some form of restraints on the reporter from actively deciding what is newsworthy. From all
these, professional journalists soon realized that objectivity was an ideal that was not possible to be
attained.

The end of journalism’s total commitment to objectivity, like other emotional and ideological
attachments, did not come easily or quickly. The strict model of objectivity or “straight” reporting which
prevailed until the 1930s, was abandoned for many reasons. One was a growing awareness that it did
not produce fair and truthful accounts of the news. Another was the advent of television, which quickly
usurped the newspaper’s traditional role of providing spot news to the public still another was the
growing complexity of twentieth century society, with its rapid technological, political and social
change. These conditions demanded background information and context that strict objectivity
couldn’t provide.

Gradually, the profession realized the need for reporting “the truth about the fear” – a clear call for
something beyond objective reporting; thus, journalists have come to now redefine the role and
function of the news media – information, interpretation and analysis, entertainment and
communication.

What has evolved is a standard of interpretive reporting that retains some of the restraints of objectivity
while giving much greater discretion to reporters in how they fashion their stories. Objectivity still
endures as the professional ideal, but journalists no longer follow it slavishly. They realize that it is a
worthy, if usually unattainable goal. Although still suitable as a standard for some uncomplicated
subjects, it is inadequate in others. Most journalists today subscribe to the concept of fairness
embodied in the ideal of objectivity, but recognize that it is often achieved through the reporters’
enterprise, not their neutrality.

In today’s amalgam of objective – interpretive journalism, reporters are expected to seek out facts and
correct distorted assertions by a news source. For spot news stories, reporters must supply sufficient
background and context for reader comprehension even though it means going beyond the event for
information.

The full flowering of interpretive reporting, however, occurs in stories that are not based on events.
These are enterprise stories: trend stories, backgrounders, analyses, “think” pieces, investigative
reports: that are increasingly becoming the hallmark of newspaper journalism. They seek to identify the
causes of events rather than report on their occurrence. Such stories give the causes and consequences
of events. To develop such stories, reporters unilaterally set the agendas for content. And sources have
become actors in the production, not directors.

One standard remains from the era of strict objectivity; questionable assertions must still be attributed
to a source while commonly accepted information can be published without attribution. Reporters are
expected to keep their personal opinions out of print, although this often a matter of form than of
substance.

The control that reporters exert over the content of interpretive stories, both sources and facts, makes
it impossible to claim that personal opinion is absent.

Professional acceptance of interpretive reporting since the 1960s has brought with it a number of
variations in journalistic style and method – the new journalism, activism and advocacy, adversary
journalism, investigative journalism, etc.

Definition of Terms

Interpretative Reporting: means that the writer seeks to find the meaning of event. That is not editorial
writing. Editorial writers tell readers or listeners that something is good or bad. That is, they make
judgments. The interpretative news writer puts the event in its context. By putting an event in context,
we mean that the interpretative writer’s job is to place the news event in the stream of cause and
effect. An event that is isolated for news story is plucked from a larger cycle or stream of related events.
The interpretative story puts the news back into this cycle or stream. Interpretative reporting often
come in the form of articles, sometimes in the form of columns called news analyses, which ever the
form these write ups give the causes and consequences of events.

The interpretative writer reads the fine print of news story in order to answer the readers’ question:
what does it mean? He writes to keep the news events in focus by showing its comparative importance.
He not only writes about: what’s going on? He goes beyond this to ask and answer the question: what
does it mean? He knows that nothing just happens without antecedents and other surrounding
circumstances. He looks for news beyond the spot news. Deadpan reporting of events, even when the
source is reputable and newsworthy, may be misleading to the extent that the event doesn’t give the
readers the “whole” or “essential” truth. The interpretative report makes up for the weaknesses of
dead pan reporting.

Readers demand, today, more than drab objective reporting following the five W’s and H. they demand
contextual reporting expanded beyond the five W’s and H.

The reporter of today must therefore prepare himself to meet the increasing need and demand for
“subsurface” or “depth” reporting, to take the reader behind the scenes of the day’s events and
activities, relate the news to the reader’s own framework and experience, make sense out of facts, put
factual news in perspective, print out significance of current events, put meaning into the news, and so
on.
In conclusion, interpretative writing is a term that suggests a detailed perspective well beyond the basic
facts of the traditional news story. The interpretive story interprets by adding detailed information and
authority to the news. When carried out with competence and grace, it shows readers, through the
benefit of evidence, rather than telling them what to think.

Depth and Human Interest Reporting: As earlier discussed, depth means thorough, detailed and
explanatory reporting, which requires the investigative approach. Most often depth stories use the
human interest bait to hook readers. The common devices often used to grab the reader’s attention
are: the anecdote lead, detailed description of a scene or event or personality, the narrative, etc. Other
devices include; case history, posing a puzzle and tossing out clues to the subject in the lead. All these
devices have been borrowed from the writers of fiction and storytelling.

The reader’s interest can be additionally attracted (or aroused) using typographical devices: subheads,
indented or odd-measure body type, boldface read-ins, and italicized paragraphs. One of the most
common devices used to sustain interest is simply breaking a story into several parts and publishing it
in installments – the serials.

Human interest stories require special warnings because of the following problems: first is the problem
of hoaxes. Many journalists have been taken in by “cute” stories (that are sensational or humourous)
that never happened. A related danger with humour is the possibility of libel, as anything that holds a
person up to public ridicule or contempt is libelous and the dividing line between innocent humour and
public ridicule is often hard to determine. If a funny story tends to make a person look stupid, naïve or
otherwise ridiculous, leave it out.

The third pitfall is more subtle. Reporters with a well developed story sense often have the tendency
to sympathise with the people they are writing about. They may create heroes or villains, allow
themselves to become advocates, or otherwise let bias colour their stories.

The Feature Article: “A newspaper feature story is an article which finds it impact outside or beyond
the realm of the straight news story’s basic and unvarnished who – what – where – when – why and
how. The justification, strength and identity of the feature lie in its penetration of the imagination –
not, however, in departing from or stretching the truth, but in piercing the peculiar and particular truths
that strike people’s curiosity, sympathy, skepticism, humour, consternation or amazement”. – Alex
McKinney of “Editor & Publisher”.

Thus to write the feature story means moving beyond the bare essentials. Features elaborate and
expand on information already known or put it in a new light that will enhance reader knowledge and
understanding. They also provide background, interpret, investigate and humanize. Thus, a feature
story provides the reader with the flavour of an event or the nature of a person, not just with the facts
of what happened or to when it happened. It carries the reader beyond the events and leads him to an
understanding of them.

A feature is a narrative, a story and an interpretation or analysis, not just a news report. It requires a
different format from the inverted pyramid more like a short story or an essay. It goes beyond the news
yet it does no more than satisfy the human requirement for an appreciation of what is going on. It is
not just a summing up of what has happened, but an understanding of what is happening.

People of today are better educated and more widely traveled and exposed than ever before. They
need more information just to conduct their daily lives in the life styles that they have deadpan,
objective set of facts about a situation they have seen. They want to understand hat has happened and
appreciate what it means. The story that will serve these people is a story that gets into the significance
of the news and the feelings of the people involved, not only the news sources but also the writers
feeling. To achieve this goal the writer turns out a feature story.

Through features the reporter blends facts and feelings to provide a broader view of event and
personalities. Knowledge and information are not enough. The reader has to have his feelings
considered and satisfied and understand what’s going on.

The Feature/Interpretative Writing Process

The feature/interpretative process start with an idea that begins in the mind of the reporter. Such an
idea the reporter can get from everyone, everything and everywhere. The reporter/writer can and
should pick up many ideas in any twenty four hours of his life just working, living, reading, listening,
observing, fantasizing about, and studying every aspect of his environment. The most likely sources of
such ideas are (1) people (2) reading and (3) experience.

People as sources of ideas: feature article ideas can come from what someone says, does or even wears.
People are a feature writer’s most important idea source; for instance the personality profile has
become one of the most often published feature article. Further elaboration may come from what the
personality says or does. Thus it will pay for a budding feature writer to become a keen observer of
people and an idea-seeking listener, questioner and participant in discussions with persons of
contrasting backgrounds, ages, ethnicity, etc. Instead of taking his car, a reporter should take a bus
once in a while and chat with, someone new; listen attentively to talk shows on radio and television,
study human interest angles in commercials, attend lectures and news conferences, join activity groups,
go to concerts, airports and depots, plays, theatres, funerals – wherever people are. A good feature
writer must not quit observing people in diverse circumstances and situations. He must develop
observation into an intuition. He must “listen with his eyes” as a well known acting teacher Uta Hagen
puts it.

Reading as an idea source: a good feature writer should be a reading addict. In his quest for ideas he
should read everything: daily and weekly newspapers (including ads and the classifieds), magazines,
directories, yellow pages, books, etc. There are ideas lurking even in mails. He reads everything who
intends to succeed in digging up ideas that could lead to interesting features.

Experience as an idea source: experience is not only the best teacher but its also a great source of ideas.
No amount of people-studying, interviewing and research can replace the personal experience of the
writer. To breathe pulsating life into the article, the feature writer should get some personal experience
related to what he is writing about. Successful feature writers have done almost anything to get the
ruing of authenticity into their articles. They have joined gangs, engaged in affairs, gone to jail or foreign
lands; taken jobs in factories they want information about or worked in hospitals to write factually
about medical subjects. They have allied themselves with racketeers, drug pushers and barons, 419ers
and you-name-it to get an authentic feel of the subject and give readers the facts beneath the stories.
A feature writers experiences covering jobs, places and people he knows well; sports, hobbies and
games he is familiar with; beliefs and philosophies he cherishes; happiest and/or saddest moments and
so on have often provided rich wives of ideas for feature articles.

The second step in the feature writing process follows after the stimulating idea has been identified:
the gathering of information relevant to the idea. Once the idea has been itemized, the feature writer,
next, forays into various places, books and materials (as well as people) to gather relevant information
concerning the idea. The information gathering starts up a build up on the idea that develops it as fully
as possible.

Information gathering can be done using five principal methods: (i) direct observation, (ii) interviewing,
(iii) public records and documents (iv) social science techniques i.e. using precision journalism-surveys
and content analysis, and (iv) library, research.

Many a times, the news gathering strategies may involve investigative efforts that are carried out to
unearth significant information about matters of public interest through the use of non-routine and
painstaking examination of materials, scrutiny of records, interviewing of sources, all done to uncover
something somebody wants to keep secret or hidden.

The next step in the feature writing process, after finding and gathering relevant information is to use
the information to develop an interesting feature story. This third step starts as the feature writer turns
the rough ideas and relevant materials gathered into an outline. Many feature writers do not develop
formal outlines before writing the first draft of their articles. An experienced feature writer who knows
what he is doing may safely write without developing an outline. However, a formal outline is a rigorous
exercise in logic that helps the writer to clarify his purpose of writing and organize his material to
achieve that purpose. He (the writer) might not be thinking of any patterns of development of the
outline because some topics just naturally lend themselves to a particular kind of development. For
instance, when he is describing an event, he intuitively think in terms of chronology. When he wants to
explain why something happened, he intuitively choose, a cause-effect pattern.

The following nine patterns of outline development can be used effectively in feature writing:

i) Chronological Outline: this works well when the writer wants do a descriptive or narrative
article.

ii) Spatial Outline: in this outline type, the items are organized according to their relationship
to one another, usually, this would be the physical relationship or shape of the thing being described.

iii) Classification/Partitional Outline: these are two related but different techniques. Classification
is the basic process of outlining by placing items in categories based on similar characteristics. Partition
is the process of dividing a single entity into its main parts. These two techniques are useful for
developing outlines about physical objects as well as more conceptual ideas.

iv) Comparison/Contrast Outline: this is used frequently where the writer wants to enable his
readers to compare and contrast; for instance, in terms of advantages and disadvantages, or strengths
and weaknesses. There are two ways of organizing comparison and contrast in writing: in chunks and
in sequence. In chunking, each subject of the comparison is presented separately; in sequencing, the
items are compared point by point.
v) General-to-Specific Outline: in this type there is a movement from the general to the more
specific information. In this type of outline the chronological outline may be combined within in, where,
the article is descriptive or narrative. This means that two outline types may be combined, one within
the other.

vi) More-important-to-the-less-important Outline: this is the movement from more important

information, which comes first, to the less important, which comes last. This type of outline is effective
even in describing events or personalities and it would naturally call for a chronological pattern as well.

vii) Problem – Methods – Solution Outline: in this type of outline, the writer begins with a discussion
of the problem; followed by a discussion of the existing methods or alternatives that can bring about
effective solutions and finally explains existing solutions (or probable solutions) as the case may be.

viii) Cause-Effect Outline: sometimes, the feature writer wants to reason from cause to effect but
at other times, from effect to cause. This type of outline can be very effective in investigative articles
where the writer wants to determine why something happened.

ix) Description – Explanation – Evaluation Outline: this type of outline was pioneered by the Wall
Street Journal. The outline begins with a specific example that is described in detail. Next, that example
is put in context, often explaining how it is part of a trend. Finally, experts’ opinions are used to evaluate
the subject.

After the outline development, comes the fourth step: drafting. Drafting is the process of turning an
outline into sentences and paragraphs. Some experienced writers can produce a draft, fix a comma
here and a word there and have a professional-quality article almost immediately after the outline has
been developed. Other writers need to spend hours drafting and revising before they can get a
professional-quality article.

For most writers, some articles seem to write themselves, whereas others refuse to make any sense at
all after several drafts.

It is impossible to offer firm guidelines on how to draft effectively. However, three principles seem to
make the job easier for most people in most situations: draft quickly immediately after your outline;
make it easy to expand and reorganize later; start with the easiest ideas.

Most writers strive to create a big rough draft as quickly as possible and then turn the draft into
professional-quality article later.

To make it easier to expand and reorganize the draft later, some writers, write on one side of the paper
so they can cut and paste later. However, the computer has now made the job of cutting and pasting;
adding and deleting a lot easier.

Starting with the easiest ideas means that the writer may not necessarily start writing from the
beginning of the story. He could start from the middle or the ending or wherever the easiest ideas can
be put down.
The last step in the writing process is that of revising and testing (or evaluating) the article. Revising is
the process of making sure the article says what the writer wants it to say, and that it says it
professionally. As is the case with all other phases of the feature writing process, every writer uses a
different technique for revising. But the important point is that a writer needs to have a technique;
since, to simply read through waiting for the problem to leap off the page seldom works effectively.

Some common sense advice for revising that works concern two parts: (i) learning how to look and (ii)
learning what to look for.

i) Learning how to look: the writer can’t revise his article effectively right after he has finished writing
it. He may be able to identify some of the smaller writing problems – such as errors in spelling and
grammar – but he may not be able to objectively assess the quality of what he has said; whether it is
clear, comprehensive and coherent.

To revise the draft effectively, the writer ought to set it aside for a time. By doing this, he would be able
to see problems that would have escaped his attention if he had revised immediately after completing
the draft.

Another tip for revising is to read the article aloud; this enables the writer to hear the mistake. Such
seems to work better than silent reading.

An obvious technique is to get another writer, preferably more experienced one, to help read the article
over and suggest what needs to be added, deleted or revised.

The computer can also be used. There are a lot of software that can help the writer spot different kinds
of style problems and grammatical or spelling errors.

ii) Learning what to look for: here are the major items to look for when revising:

a) Comprehensiveness: this is the primary issue to be considered during revision – Does the
document discuss all the topics or issues the reader would need discussed? Should anything be coded?
Has anything been omitted? This is to make sure that all the items from the outline have been included
and discussed.

b) Accuracy: having all the necessary information will do you – and your reader – no good if
the information is inaccurate. This is the point to check and cross check your source to make sure that
your facts are accurate and correct. Make sure too that your draft is straightforward and unbiased;
remove any distortions or misrepresentations.

c) Organization: visualize your readers trying to use your document. Is the organization as clear
and useful as it can be? Is the sequence clear and logical? Make necessary changes if you feel a different
organization would read better.

d) Emphasis: have you placed the right emphasis on the major issues rather than, say, the
minor ones. Do you need to condense some areas and expand others so as to give due emphasis to
issues discussed?
e) Style: revise your style. Have you used an appropriate level of vocabulary for your audience?
Have you used consistent concepts and terminologies throughout? Are the sentences grammatically
correct? What about spellings or any awkward sentence construction? Are the sentences error free?
Are all the sentences of similar length? Do you use varied sentence structure? Punctuation? Is your
diction correct, specific and original?

f) Spelling: readers take spelling very seriously when they see misspelled words they tend to
think that the material might be flawed and the writer shoddy.

Writing Collaboratively

Writing features and interpretative articles is essentially a solitary activity. The only major exception
has been where the advice of another person is sought during the revision stage. However, much
writing on the field is collaborative. Collaborative writing can be defined as any writing in which more
than one person participates during at least one of the stages of the writing process: prewriting, drafting
and revising.

What are the advantages of collaboration? In four important ways, the process of working together can
improve both the article, and the writers:

a) Collaboration draws on a greater knowledge base. Two heads are better than one, and three
are better yet. The more people involved in planning and writing an article the larger the knowledge
base. This translates to an article that can be more comprehensive and more accurate than a single
author-article.

b) Collaboration creates a better sense of how the audience will read the article. The process
of working collaboratively involves having more than one person read the drafts. Each person who
reads and comments on a draft acts as an audience, raising questions and suggesting improvements
that one person might not think of.

c) Collaboration allows for synergy in the fact finding and investigative process so that this
yields more informative that treats the issue more exhaustively.

d) Collaboration improves communication and relationship amongst colleagues. People who

work together, after some time, get to know one another and learn one another’s jobs, responsibilities
and frustrations. A shared goal can enable people to transcend their own isolation – this improves team
spirit.

e) Collaboration improves the socialization of cub writers. Another major benefit of collaboration
is that it helps acclimate new employees to the job. Working collaboratively helps the cub writer learn
the ropes. It also teaches the values and work culture that permeates the news organization.

Some basic guidelines can make any kind of collaborative writing effective and efficient:

a) The participants must agree to a goal, a strategy and a set of procedures.

b) The participants must try to work together in harmony.

c) Each participant must have a specific role.

d) The group must have a coordinator: one person must be the leader. That person schedules
and chairs meetings of the group, provides motivation and support i.e. logistics, and helps reach
consensus when differences of opinion occur on any issue.
Although people often work together while drafting, most collaboration occurs during prewriting and
revising. Today, technology can help enhance collaboration i.e. computer, e-mail, fax, etc