Collaboration will be the keyword in 2023. What seemed almost unthinkable just a few years ago — working with our competitors — now makes more and more sense as newsrooms shrink and reporters are stretched too thin.

We’ve made great strides here in Colorado, both as individual news outlets and through the efforts of the Colorado News Collaborative, or COLab. We’ve collectively produced statewide projects that none of us could have pulled off on our own. Now I’m hearing that journalists in other states are doing the same.

Sure, we’ll still compete when it makes sense; most journalists love to get scoops and shine. But there’s a growing awareness that our readers are better served when we pool resources and tackle topics of public interest.

Even amid further declines in newsrooms across the country, this push toward greater collaboration fills me with hope that we can pull together to do good work.