University News Last updated 16 June 2010
MA Online Journalism award leader Paul Bradshaw has been sharing his research into new ways to organise investigative journalism at an international conference.
The 'Journalism's Next Top Model' conference – which looked at new ways to fund and organise journalism – took place at Westminster University last week.
Paul's paper - 'Anatomy of an Investigation: A Case Study in Crowdsourcing' - looked at the dynamics behind a successful investigation on Investigate.com
The investigation saw a group of people collaborate on the site to investigate claims made by a free newspaper launched at the start of 2010. The results of the investigation were quoted by the Guardian Media Podcast and MediaWeek.
Paul says: "The research looks at how people used the site for that specific investigation and also the reasons people gave for using the site as a whole. In addition MA student Andy Brightwell conducted some interviews with participants into the process of the investigation.
"What we've discovered is that community is key to the success of this sort of crowdsourced investigation, along with some other qualities such as 'public-ness' and the expertise of those involved.
"This is really useful information for the growing number of news organisations and journalists looking to involve the public in their work."
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