An International & Collaborative Approach to Publishing that Heightened Impact & Reach
The hope for this investigation was for it to have an impact. To achieve that goal we needed to ensure that the reporting was seen globally.
Here’s how we did that: After publishing the journalism with our flagship partner, the New Yorker, we began rolling parts of it out elsewhere around the world. Since then, news outlets in 24 countries have published versions of the reporting in 12 languages reaching an audience over 200 million.
Aside from hoping the reporting would be seen widely, we published in this international fashion so that we could also ensure that the reporting was seen in the very countries whose citizens (often in the developing world) were directly affected by some of the labor or environmental crimes.
This was more than just a syndication approach. For each news partner, we provided editors with a version of the reporting that spoke to their particular audience. This typically included information tying forced labor on Chinese ships and seafood plants to specific grocery store and restaurant chains in their nations.
When these outlets wanted to run additional follow-up stories in the wake of publishing our stories, we worked with their staff reporters and editors, walking them through the relevant trade and satellite data, showing them how to connect the supply-chain dots to trace concerns from ships to factories to consumers. We also trained them to mine Douyin footage (Chinese TikTok) for proof of the presence of North Korean or Xinjiang labor in processing plants.
After the investigation broke internationally, reporters and editors within the (seafood) trade press and from general-interest outlets abroad got in touch. Mostly, they sought guidance on using certain tools on our website so that they could look at these issues for themselves. Two tools in particular have been especially popular among these reporters doing follow-up coverage.
The first is the Discussion tool, which allows anyone to see all of our communications with more than 300 companies and government agencies that we found tied to the concerns highlighted in the investigation. The second is the Bait-to-Plate tool, which allows the public to trace crimes and concerns on the water through their relevant processing plants to their end consumers.
This publishing effort required an unusual level of trust and collaboration between major news venues and editors. For that we are deeply thankful to all the outlets that worked with us.
To explore the scope of the effort including the countries and outlets involved, please see our Reach page.