'We realised that what makes digital platforms possible and what we should do to stay on the story is move away from the very incremental or purely chronological approach that news has in general'
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Natalia Antelava has spent most of her journalism career so far working as a foreign correspondent for the BBC, having reported from places such as Syria, Yemen and Uzbekistan.
After one of her trips to Yemen back in 2012, where she was one of very few foreign correspondents on the ground covering a violent uprising, she became especially aware of the fact that upon her departure, she would "leave behind a story that will fall from the headlines" even if it wasn't over.
"I knew that I'd be gone and that would be it, not necessarily because the editors didn't care anymore but because if you don't have a person on the ground nagging you about the story, it's much harder to focus on it," she told Journalism.co.uk.
"So that combination of editorial attention and the fact that you don't have anyone on the ground means the story completely dies even when it doesn't merit dying."
Antelava felt the way in which journalism was done hadn't changed much compared to the pre-digital era, so after leaving Yemen, she started talking to a few people to try and find a different formula.
The reason why journalists are so bad at staying on stories is because we treat every story as a snapshot in time and not as part of this wider big picture - Natalia Antelava, Coda Story
Antelava and journalist and magazine writer Ilan Greenberg came up with Coda Story, a "single issue web platform that puts a team of journalists on one crisis at a time and stays with it".
"For a long time we treated online as a disposable platform in the same way we treated newspapers, which you read, put in a pile and then throw out. We're putting out updates but not making the best of everything the internet offers, these amazing possibilities of making connections and basically not dumbing down news.
"The reason why journalists are so bad at staying on stories is because we treat every story as a snapshot in time and not as part of this wider big picture."
One year ago, in January 2016, Coda Story launched as a pilot focusing on LGBTQ rights in the former Soviet Union, after receiving a small grant and crowdfunding a further $23,000. This proof of concept consisted of five months of coverage and a radio show produced in partnership with Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, broadcast to 360 public radio stations in the US.
The aim was to get an idea of the editorial process and the publishing workflows involved, before launching two more Codas last month, tackling disinformation in Eurasia and the migration crisis in Europe.
The underlying principle of Coda Story is to take a complex topic and dissect it by telling stories that allow people to dive into the wider issue, Antelava said.
The topic for the pilot was chosen because gay rights in Russia had made a splash in the western press at the time of the Sochi Olympic Games, so the team wanted to get to the bottom of it by explaining both the human rights and the political aspects of it.
This led to doing a Coda on disinformation, and migration was chosen to provide a "comprehensive view of how the migrant crisis is affecting the very fabric of the European society", not just the refugees' journeys that the media was already covering.
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Originally, the idea was to spend between six and nine months with an issue, but the team is more flexible now, depending on the demands of the story and "whether or not we provide a public service".
The plan is to spend one year on covering disinformation and see where it leads next in that region, which could be to smaller stories that deserve attention for a shorter period or issues that could take a couple of years to report on.
Coda Story has a core editorial team of 10 people. Before a topic is chosen, one or more members of the team are on the ground to do the initial research and determine the themes and currents that edition will follow, before bringing other freelancers and contributors on board to help.
Each article published on the platform is curated thematically, not chronologically, under what the team calls currents. These are themes or major topics that can change, end or surface at any point during the coverage.
"We realised that what makes digital platforms possible and what we should do to stay on the story is move away from the very incremental or purely chronological approach that news has in general, which is necessary but we are not doing breaking news."
What makes digital platforms possible and what we should do to stay on the story is move away from the very incremental or purely chronological approach that news has in general - Natalia Antelava, Coda Story
Since Coda Story is a new platform, the team is still working on building a community and attracting readers. Part of this strategy are the editorial and content sharing partnerships the organisation signed with other outlets, including the Guardian, Reveal and the World Policy Institute during the pilot. The other part is reaching out to people who care about the niche subjects that are being covered.
Coda Story is primarily funded through foundation grants, but it also raised money through crowdfunding and individual donations. The team is currently conducting research to launch a membership scheme later in the year, Antelava said, and they are also looking into creating sponsored Codas on commissioned subjects.
"[Single-issue publications] allow you to be a beat reporter and go deeper, which journalistically is a great thing because beat reporters are often the best reporters, they have the contacts, the expertise and so they can build a community around the topics that they cover.
"I think this is the future because [these platforms] really fit the model of the internet and how we consume news. We all want our local news except local is not geographical anymore, local is our interest."
