Open File

With printed newspapers dropping like flies, what will become of professional investigative journalism? Are we doomed to user-generated tales passed off as news?

Open File is offering an alternative. It labels itself as “community-powered news”. Here’s how it works: you uncover a story that needs telling, you open a file on the site, if it’s deemed worthy you are assigned a professional freelance journalist to help shape, research and write the story, the story is then published on the site.

Initiated in Toronto, the site currently covers Vancouver, Calgary, Waterloo, Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa and Montréal (not necessarily in that order). It’s still in beta and somewhat limited in scope but could be an excellent source of quality, independent reporting if enough concerned citizens contribute to generating leads and feedback. Stay tuned.