Full-day event on cross-border investigative journalism

Crossborder Journalism Campus (CJC) is a pilot project where students from three European universities collaborate over the course of an academic year to conduct investigative journalism together. Since its inception in 2022, CJC students have had around 50 investigations published in established European news outlets such as France's Le Monde and Mediapart, Germany’s public broadcasters MDR and ARD, Sweden's Göteborgs-Posten and Svenska Dagbladet, as well as the European publication EUobserver. The project has also developed a model for international collaboration within higher journalism education.

The initiative for CJC came from the international master’s program in investigative journalism at the University of Gothenburg (MIJ), which also leads the project. Media & Democrazy partnered on the knowledge dissemination aspect and hosted the seminar where the results were presented.

It was a packed day at Visual Arena. Four student groups presented their respective investigations, covering topics such as labor shortages in Europe, illicit activities in the cleaning industry, advanced data journalism on emissions trading, and the work behind revealing that Sweden Democrats in the EU vote against almost all environmental and climate-related policies, often more so than their European sister parties.

The award-winning journalist Édouard Perrin, a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) – the organization behind investigations like the Panama Papers – was also present and spoke about the importance of investigative journalism from an international perspective. Researchers from Leipzig University discussed the structure of the CJC project, and a renowned panel with perspectives from both the industry and the EU debated the need for investigative and cross-border EU coverage.

Why is it important to highlight cross-border journalism and this project?

"The journalistic relevance is that this is something many of the future’s journalists will need to get better at. As for the academic relevance, I think it’s hard for outsiders to grasp just how innovative and challenging this project truly is. Getting universities from three countries to work seamlessly together is no small feat."

One of the recurring topics during the seminar was the challenge of collaborating across borders, especially due to cultural differences and varying working methods.

"We see that people from all over the world who are involved in journalism education show tremendous interest in what we’ve learned. We’re doing this at the educational level, but as Hans Peterson Hammer (from Göteborgs-Posten) pointed out in the panel discussion, it’s also a challenge for the industry to agree on a project – how to work, what the rules are, who makes the decisions, and so on. Project management is a challenge for everyone, and this was something the students also testified to."

CJC in its current project form will conclude at the end of the year, but the University of Gothenburg plans to continue working with cross-border collaborations within the MIJ master’s program. The exact format is still to be determined.

"All of us who have been partners in this project believe that the cross-border perspective is very important. We believe society needs this type of investigative work, and we want to give students the experience of having done it. We also want to provide students with an international network – it’s one of the truly big advantages of our program. Our students have a broader international network than most national reporters," said Ulla Sätereie.

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