checklists

6. Collecting findings: tips and suggestions.

Nowadays, journalists have a universe of new technologies to communicate across the world – reliably, instantly and for free (or almost). This is the ‘new normal’ for news coverage and journalists have to adapt to make the most of these new opportunities. This checklist might help you with fulfilling this aspiration.

Open a local newspaper, look for bloggers in places where media agencies are government owned or controlled. Compile a list of all those you find, follow them online.

Due to security concerns – to protect their safety.

There are plenty of social networks online that, some of them gathering people interested in migration (such as #MediaMigrationEurope) or groups of migrants themselves.

Organizations such as ReFocus Media Lab can connect you directly with media workers from local communities or refugee camps, thus providing you with unique content and inputs.

These people – often activists, NGO workers, humanitarian professionals or others with strong local connections – can be invaluable in securing access to communities and individuals. They could help you find respondents on the other side of the world in a matter of minutes or hours.

It might sound surprising but yes, you can find human stories in an academic research environment, too.

Local media is a great place to start for stories and alternative perspectives. And what about if you don’t understand the language? Increasingly, online translators can do the job for you. They may not be perfect, but they give you a good picture.

A search through local media or NGO networks can help guide you.

Remember Couchsurfing? This is just one example of an online forum that can enable you to develop contacts in a particular place.

Find more information in post Collecting findings from behind a table: tips and suggestions.

You may also like other checklists

1. Am I doing my job inclusively?

Information we work with is influenced in many ways - both, when received as well as when reproduced to our audience. It is not an easy job to minimise these effects, keeping the story and message inclusive might help.

2. Critical analysing of information

This checklist could help you to identify narratives, discourses and frames journalists (usually) unconsciously use while doing a journalism job. Do not take it as a manual or exhausting list of to do and not to dos - it is more about food for thoughts when gathering, selecting, processing and reproducing whatever information we get into contact with.

3. Going to the field

What to have in mind before departure on the ground? Especially distanced contexts. What not to forget?

4. Making entry into a community

This checklist is based on Reporting Diversity Manual – it could help you to make contact with members of minority community, but can be used for other social groups as well.

5. Changing your approach to desk-based research – first steps.

Would you like to enrich your desk-based coverage on global issues? There are a few simple steps you can take to begin with.

7. Planning is the essence of good coverage.

Irrespective of whether you are working from behind a desk or in the field, solid research and planning is where good journalism begins. This is especially true if you don't really know a lot about the topic. The following checklist is based on recommendations in a textbook on migration reporting, People Between the Lines: A Handbook on Migration for (Future) Journalists.

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