Collective

Open Eyes Collective focuses on developing investigative journalists by establishing and guiding cross-local collaborations and specialized investigative networks, for both experienced journalists who have reached a knowledge ceiling and experts transitioning into journalism. We believe that the most urgent stories emerge where knowledge, experience, and perspectives intersect.

Within the collective, we bring journalists together across local and thematic boundaries. We build cross-local collaborations and specialized investigative networks in which seasoned investigative journalists find new depth, and experts translate their knowledge into journalism that truly matters. Not individually, but as shared inquiry.

Open Eyes Collective supports these collaborations both substantively and organizationally. We create space for exchange, precision, and trust, enabling complex cases to be examined collectively. From this cohesion grows investigative journalism with greater context, greater impact, and greater authority.

We organize workshops and training sessions to keep ourselves and others up to date. The result is high-level journalism: stories that find their way into regional, national, and international media, and that demonstrate what is possible when eyes are open to one another and to the world.

Within the Open Eyes Collective, investigative journalists work with a broad and complementary set of skills. The collective combines classical investigative journalism with cross-media storytelling and operates at the intersection of journalism, culture, art, and society. Experience in desk and field research goes hand in hand with digging through documents and archives, conducting fieldwork, and asking critical, sometimes difficult questions. Members of the collective conduct in-depth investigations into lobbying practices, the manipulation of science, foreign interference, and international power structures, including Russian influence, while analyzing complex financial flows and constructions.

Open Eyes has extensive expertise in working with the Dutch Open Government Act (Woo/FOI): from submitting and following up on requests to analyzing large volumes of released documents, often in combination with data journalism and OSINT research. Data and technology play an important role in the investigative process, with skills in data analysis, data visualization, statistics, and monitoring. The collective works with Python, machine learning, and web scraping, and has knowledge of cybersecurity, Excel, and the interpretation of scientific and policy data.

The collective has strong audiovisual capabilities and produces podcasts, radio stories, and documentaries, from idea and research to recording, editing, and publication. Audiovisual productions are regularly used in cross-media projects, where image, audio, and text reinforce one another. The collective also has experience with journalistic photography as a standalone medium and as part of investigative and storytelling processes.

Writing skills form a core part of Open Eyes’ work. The collective produces longreads and long-form investigative articles, narrative and analytical journalism, personal stories, and academically oriented texts, as well as annual reports and policy-focused publications. In doing so, it pays close attention to trauma-informed practices and ethical journalism, with care for sources and those involved.

In addition to substantive expertise, Open Eyes possesses strong organizational and entrepreneurial skills. Members have experience in project management and coordination, fundraising, and grant applications, including funding trajectories with film and cultural funds. Networking, building trust with sources, interview techniques, moderating, and facilitating conversations are important parts of the work, as is international collaboration.

Finally, the collective brings substantive knowledge of European and Dutch policy, the social domain, and environmental issues, as well as regional expertise and language proficiency, including knowledge of the Chinese language and Indonesia. This combination of investigative skills, technological expertise, storytelling forms, and substantive knowledge enables Open Eyes to examine and communicate complex societal issues in a thorough and accessible way.