Building Narrative Infrastructure Webinar Series

What does it take for communities to solve problems together?

In the third installment of our Building Narrative Infrastructure webinar series, Delaney Butler and Liza Gross of the Collaborative Journalism Resource Hub explored how collaborative journalism can help communities build stronger relationships, create more responsive institutions, and expand the ways journalism reaches people.

Their work demonstrates something we’ve been exploring at Narrative Arts for years: journalism is not simply about producing stories. It’s about creating the relationships, practices, and institutions that allow community knowledge to become public knowledge. Durable community change depends on the strength of local relationships, not simply the strength of individual organizations. Collaborative journalism helps build that civic infrastructure by creating the conditions for people and institutions to learn, respond, and solve problems together.

Collaboration Is More Than Sharing Stories

Many people think of collaborative journalism as news organizations exchanging articles or pooling reporting resources.

But the Collaborative Journalism Resource Hub defines collaboration much more broadly.

Successful collaboratives create long-term partnerships among news organizations, universities, libraries, artists, public health organizations, community groups, and residents. They establish shared goals, shared governance, and shared investment in the issues that matter most to their communities.

The goal isn’t simply producing more journalism.

The goal is producing journalism that helps communities understand problems, identify solutions, and make better decisions together.

Building Trust Before the Story Is Published

One of the strongest themes throughout the conversation was trust.

Not simply trust between journalists and the public, but trust among the organizations working together.

Successful collaboratives don’t avoid difficult conversations. They create structures that make those conversations possible. Partners establish clear expectations, address conflicts openly, and develop shared agreements about funding, editorial standards, and decision-making.

As Delaney Butler noted, problem-solving is a muscle. Communities strengthen that muscle by practicing it together.

Liza Gross offered an equally important reminder: declining trust in journalism began long before collaborative journalism emerged.

Rebuilding that trust requires more than publishing accurate reporting. It requires journalism to remain in continuous conversation with the communities it serves. Healthy communities depend on strong feedback loops between residents, institutions, and local leaders. Journalism has a vital role to play in those feedback loops not simply transmitting information, but listening, reflecting community knowledge back into public life, and helping communities learn and adapt together.

Journalism Can Take Many Forms

One of the most inspiring parts of the discussion was seeing how journalism continues long after a story is published.

Across the country, collaboratives have transformed reporting into:

• community theater
• dance performances
• graphic novels
• oral history projects
• public exhibitions
• text-message information services
• neighborhood conversations
• civic events

These projects don’t replace journalism.

They extend it.

They create new ways for people to encounter information, participate in public life, and contribute their own experiences to the conversation.

Lessons from Wilmington

The webinar also highlighted the Coastal Journalism Hub in Wilmington, North Carolina, as an example of how collaborative journalism can grow from strong local relationships.

According to Butler, several factors made the partnership stand out:

• a willingness to try something new
• diverse organizations representing the community
• trusted local leadership
• strong relationships among partners
• an urgent reporting challenge—in this case, the nearly 17-year difference in life expectancy between neighborhoods in New Hanover County

Rather than treating journalism and public health as separate fields, the Hub has created opportunities for journalists, artists, nonprofits, researchers, and residents to learn from one another and produce reporting that better reflects community experience.

Narrative Infrastructure in Practice

At Narrative Arts, we often describe our work as building narrative infrastructure….the relationships that allow stories to become action.

Collaborative journalism is one expression of that idea.

When journalism becomes part of a broader civic ecosystem, it strengthens not only news organizations but also the relationships communities depend on to solve problems together. That’s how communities build the capacity to learn, adapt, and act together—through trusted relationships and the feedback loops that connect lived experience to public decision-making.

Watch the full webinar featuring Delaney Butler and Liza Gross of the Collaborative Journalism Resource Hub and learn more about how communities across the country are building stronger local information ecosystems.

▶ Watch the recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYcWHsPx9MM

The Building Narrative Infrastructure webinar series is presented by Narrative Arts and features practitioners working at the intersection of journalism, public health, arts, and civic engagement to explore how stronger relationships create healthier, more resilient communities.