We at CORRECTIV have wide experience of crowd-sourcing. We know all about the most important challenge you will face with this kind of data collection: so-called ‘data flooding’. This is why we developed CrowdNewsroom as a tool that is capable of structured data collection and that allows your data analysts to learn as much as possible from the information you and your community have collected. Without CrowdNewsroom you risk being swamped by spreadsheets and forms.

Short answer: Yes. CrowdNewsroom is a tool for investigations in the public interest. As such, CrowdNewsroom is exercising the media privilege as defined in the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This has been confirmed by the German authorities. But bear in mind: this is also why CORRECTIV as a newsroom needs to run the CrowdNewsroom and why CORRECTIV reserves the right to decline or delete some investigations or editors.

CrowdNewsroom is a non-partisan tool in the service of a democratic society. Its goal is to contribute to an educated debate in the public interest. CORRECTIV reserves the right to decline or delete investigations or editors, when these are acting against the fundamental principles and ethics of an enlightened society. For example, we refuse investigations or editors who promote totalitarianism.

Unfortunately not. CrowdNewsroom is a tool for investigations in the public interest. So you can’t run it to satisfy your curiosity. Please bear in mind: with Crowdnewsroom we are exercising a media privilege as defined in the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. This is also why CORRECTIV reserves the right to decline or cancel some investigations as well as some editors.

Running individual CrowdNewsrooms costs money. We need to set up databases, maintain servers, fix bugs and provide after-sales support. So we need to charge an initial fee. But we don’t want to overcharge anybody. So the fee depends on the volume of contributions to the CrowdNewsroom. And we hand you total control over the budget. Before you incur any additional costs, we will inform you. And you can then decide whether you want to spend more money on your investigation.

No. From our experience with CrowdNewsroom we know that contributors are very interested in sharing honest data. Also, we have developed our tool in a way that makes fact-checking as easy as possible. So we can delete any spam created by wrongdoers quickly.

The CrowdNewsroom editor is the individual who develops questions in the CrowdNewsroom, analyzes the data collected and uses it for his reporting. This person has to be reliable – just like an editor in a traditional newsroom. This is why CORRECTIV reserves the right to decline some editors.

A contributor is anybody who shares his data in the CrowdNewsroom. This can be a citizen, an expert or a person affected by the investigation. We have already worked together with thousands of contributors in our CrowdNewsrooms. Contributors are not responsible for the reporting. They are sources of information.

Every editor has access to the back end of his investigation where the collected data is stored. They will then be able to search and clean the data and export it to other tools to analyze the datasets.

After an investigaton is complete, you must ‘unpublish’ all data collected in your Crowdnewsroom. This is necessary to ensure compliance with the key principles of the General Data Protection Regulation.