A free network helping local reporters turn data into stories
Imagine filing a cross-border investigation in 24 hours – with verified data, ready-made visuals, expert quotes, and no membership fee. That’s the daily promise of CORRECTIV.Europe.
CORRECTIV.Europe launched in January 2024 and today brings together roughly 420 members from about 35 European countries. The network scales up the German model of CORRECTIV.Lokal to a continental level. It provides local and regional journalists with data-driven story packages, methodological support, and opportunities for cross-border collaboration. Membership is flexible, several people from the same newsroom can join, 20-25% of the community are freelancers. Joining is intentionally simple, filling out a short form that takes about three minutes.
“We do this to support local media, completely free of charge. There’s no joining fee or monthly fee,” says Gyula Csák, the network’s engagement reporter, who is responsible for day-to-day member relations, edits the newsletter, looks for partners in new countries, and helps hold the community together.
From data to local story, even in a single day
CORRECTIV.Europe’s first major European project focused on industrial air pollution. Using plant-level data reported to the EU, the team built up a picture going back several years and, crucially, produced cost estimates for how much individual facilities’ emissions cost each country. That translates the problem for local audiences as well: a reader in Prague can check what’s happening nearby just as easily as someone in Marseille.
The key is not only the database, but the editorial wrapper. For each country there’s a one-page brief about key findings, access to the database, visualization support, and a 5-7 page “recipe” with precise sources, methodology, and pre-collected expert opinions. In addition, the team regularly organizes expert conversations where members can ask their own questions and get quotable answers.
“Our principle is that even if someone has only one day to write, they should still be able to publish the story,” Gyula sums up.
Beyond air pollution, the “heating & cooling degree days” project worked similarly: it shows, city by city and region by region, how the number of heating and cooling days has changed and what to expect 20-30 years from now. The framework is simple yet powerful, data-driven and locally relatable.
The impact followed. The air-pollution topic was covered by 35-40 newsrooms. In some places a documentary was produced, elsewhere civil society picked up the topic. In one case, a French newsroom was warned by an affected company that if they published, funding would be cut. They published and the funding was indeed cut – but the public interest prevailed.
Another great example for the groundwork is the Demolition Atlas Europe project (in partnership with the Greek online magazine SOLOMON): it examines how buildings, including heritage sites, are demolished and what community consequences follow. Stories have already appeared from Czechia and Germany and in many cities the topic is instantly local.
Slack, embargo, credit and zero admin burden
The backbone of CORRECTIV.Europe is day-to-day collaboration. The team uses Slack for this which is a challenge in itself because different countries are used to different tools (some prefer Messenger, others WhatsApp, etc.). Even so, the shared platform pays off: members find partners for grant applications, exchange ideas and sources, get quick answers to questions, and many co-productions start taking shape there.
Publishing comes with two simple requests, credit and embargo. CORRECTIV.Europe provides everything free of charge, in return, the network asks that the partnership is credited in the story, and that no one publishes before the agreed date. This way the topic launches loudly and in sync. After the embargo, anyone can join any time, many packages remain fresh and useful months later.
For local teams, the biggest relief is that there is no administrative burden at CORRECTIV.Europe. “We don’t ask for quarterly reports, any statements or narrative reports. We deliberately avoid this: we don’t want one or two people in a 4-6 person newsroom to end up doing only paperwork. That simply doesn’t exist with us,” says Gyula.
Knowledge-sharing is part of the model as well. The network runs webinars throughout the year. A session on audience engagement was particularly popular, with Portuguese, Hungarian, and German examples showing how to reach and retain audiences in both small towns and big cities. These conversations often end with practical tactics and new connections.
When there’s no EU data, tell a story
CORRECTIV.Europe already collaborates with journalists from North Macedonia and Serbia, Montenegro is still a blank spot, but expansion is an active goal. Since many projects rely on EU databases, data availability in the Western Balkans is uneven. In these cases, the network suggests starting with the story. Go on the ground, find local sources, dig up the data and they help with all of this.
“A story might be relevant to only a few countries at first, but to them it’s highly relevant. We want to serve that regional sensitivity more deliberately,” says Gyula. Over the next 1-2 years, their goals are to grow and activate the membership, open beyond the EU, especially toward the Balkans and Ukraine, and select themes that work when tailored to local conditions.
Among day-to-day challenges are the diversity of communication habits and the unpredictability of data availability. CORRECTIV.Europe therefore sets careful expectations. If data arrives late, publication slips, and the network handles this transparently.
Easy to join and truly nothing to lose
It’s very easy to join CORRECTIV.Europe. Membership is a possibility, not an assignment. There’s no minimum activity, and no consequence if someone is quiet. Anyone who uses the network gains data, tools, partners, quotable experts, and quick feedback, all with zero paperwork.
“The greatest value is that you’re not alone,” Gyula Csák concludes. “If you want to speak to a French, German, Czech, or Polish journalist, one message on Slack and you already have someone to work with. No obligations, only benefits. That’s why I’d love to see more colleagues from the Western Balkans join, as our stories don’t stop at borders.”
In essence, CORRECTIV.Europe provides a back office for local journalism: it saves time, adds methodological safety, supports visualization, and connects people who, on their own, would often hit the limits of their resources.
Author: Kata Tihanyi
This article was produced as part of the Thomson Foundation’s Internship programme for young female journalists implemented under the Deepening Digital: Reinforcing Resilience project.
