A new European union is forming (of news orgs partnering to share their data tools and journalism)

The state of the European Union may now be more uncertain than ever, but European news outlets have been making cross-border moves to solidify ties to each others’ work.

In October, a dozen media organizations will begin officially sharing data-driven stories they produce with each other, through a newly formed European Data Journalism Network (which will live at edjnet.eu when the launch date comes around). VoxEurop, a nonprofit site that commissions, translates, and shares stories with various European partner news organizations will serve as an editorial coordinator (and translation facilitator).

In addition to collaborating on data reporting focused on understanding Europe-wide issues, those participating in the network will share data journalism tools and conduct trainings for journalists:

Produce data-driven investigations, in-depth articles, explanatory stories and features, as well as infographics, videos and short reviews in up to 12 languages.

Develop automated tools to increase newsrooms’ productivity to report on European issues and curate existing data-driven resources, tools, stories and news to encourage users to follow and cover EU affairs.

Provide tailored, on-demand advice on data-driven news to journalists through its helpdesk and webinars.

Engage in news co-production and content sharing with other media outlets across Europe by setting up editorial partnerships and content syndication.

Currently, the organizations involved in the EDJ Network are:

a consortium of European media outlets led by Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa (Italy) and VoxEurop (France), in close partnership with three other outlets — Alternatives économiques (France), Spiegel Online (Germany), EUObserver (Belgium) — and three data-journalism agencies — Journalism++ (France); Local Focus (Netherlands) and Journalism Robotics (Sweden). Eight other media — two data journalism newsrooms (BIQdata at Gazeta Wyborcza in Poland and Pod črto in Slovenia) and six major outlets (Askanews and Internazionale in Italy, NRC Handelsblad in the Netherlands, El Confidential in Spain, H-Alter in Croatia, and Ouest-France in France) — already take part as EDJNet partners in this broad network. These partners have a cumulated potential audience of 70 million unique monthly viewers and the network will be open to new associates.