Journalists tend to be a bit competitive. 

     We live for the scoop. We sometimes go to great lengths to beat another reporter to the story. 

     Meetings in the back booths of diners were not uncommon. Sit with your back to the wall, the old timers said.

     I remember interviewing a cop one evening in the bathroom of the police department with all the faucets running and a reporter from a rival paper listening at the door. 

     But those were the days when two dailies and two weeklies covered even the smallest towns. When every council, planning board, zoning board and board of education meeting found two or three young reporters in the front row with steno pads and Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencils. When county government was a coveted beat. When cop shop was a stepping stone and everybody lived with a police radio sputtering 24/7.

     We couldn't have imagined a time like today with papers using a machete to enact layoffs. With no coverage at all in even large municipalities. With no one bugging the cops or challenging the freeholders. 

      So maybe we need to suspend our need to catch the first worm and actually work together.

     I'm not talking against good old-fashioned competition, but for the big, investigative stories most newspapers don't have the staff to do the work they used to do. I can remember being sent to Trenton to camp out at office doors or dig through archives for hours. That doesn't happen any more. 

     ProPublica seems to be setting the gold standard for investigative journalism in collaboration with other outlets. Public radio has been doing it the longest. Now other news organizations are figuring out ways to work together.

     The Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University held it's third cooperative journalism summit in Philadelphia last week. Presenters shared stories of cooperative reporting, mostly on the local level. Many of them worked to investigate problems in their communities.

    A Vancouver project explored why indigenous residents were over-represented in the juvenile protective services. A post-Parkland-shooting collaborative paired professional and student journalists. The Denver Uprising combined civic engagement and newsroom collaboration.  

    The CCM is studying different collaborations, measuring the success of various types, and assisting more news organizations in collaborations. 

     It's hard to shake off the old habits of competitiveness, but it helps to remember this isn't varsity sports. It's providing a vital service to the public. And, who knows, maybe a scoop will come your way anyway.