by Guokai Sun
Before joining Open Contracting Partnership, where he focuses on coordination and communication in many investigations, Georg Neumann started his career as a journalist for a German online media start-up, contributed to several magazines and worked in Mexico and Morocco for some time before initiating Transparency International’s Young Journalists. So what in his opinion are the differences between an individual journalist and the coordinator of cross-border investigations?
According to Georg, when he first worked as a journalist in an online media start-up, it was promising, and he enjoyed that time when he could meet and talk to many people to widen his perspective and horizon to learn more and cover more. Yet as time went on, the lack of in-depth coverage of a certain topic made it “not feeling at home” for Georg, especially after he developed a strong interest in social and development issues in Mexico to care about transparency and anti-corruption deeply. Therefore, he decided to end up on the non-profit side and work with journalists who really care about those social issues. He says, “When you find out there’s a great kind of like connection to work together and support each other, which I think is really important.”
Now Georg is the head of communications for Open Contracting Partnership, which focuses on public procurement because of its importance. In Georg’s words, “It’s where the taxpayer money turns into the services, goods and infrastructure that communities really need. This information needs to be opened up for it to be accountable.” Thus, OCP developed rigorous standards and indicators to measure whether the projects and the journalists will succeed. If they are not positive, people like Georg will step up to say no, which is also one of the major differences and challenges between a journalist and a coordinator.
It’s easy to get a leak or starting point as a journalist, yet as a coordinator, according to Georg, “as an editor or coordinator, you need to keep a big picture in mind…Because it’s such a complex environment that it’s easy to sort of go out in a direction that then isn’t really successful or would take a lot of time and doesn’t really add much to the story itself. So I think really prioritizing saying yes or no to a certain direction or putting stop to a place where you feel like it’s not going anywhere else.” And in terms of cross-border investigations, the challenges Georg has are to “make sure that you have the space to customize your story to your national purpose, but at the same time, you have a common ground that really makes the story comparable” and “to find the topic that works for everyone and the topic where you have enough data that works for everyone.”
And for journalists, Georg has one suggestion and one tip:
- Getting networked: “You can’t do the investigations in the other country…especially when it comes to investigating corruption, investigating political issues, you need a network of people that you can rely on… that’s just one of the most important parts of building your skill set…everyone brings in an important element to the story and to the investigation itself. And especially when you look at reporting beyond borders. You can’t really do it without a great network.”
- Do not overinterpret the data: “Sometimes the data may tell you that there is something wrong, but it also could be that the information is just not there…There might be some things that are going on, that aren’t running the exact right course, but over-interpreting and calling everything corruption, I think that can be a problem too…Sometimes it’s just a lack of capacity.”
His X account bio says “Transparency, data viz, open data, innovation, communication, development, the world.” I think it is the best description for Georg Neumann’s career.
About Georg Neumann
Photo provided by Georg Neumann
Georg started his career as a journalist for a German online media start-up, which was new and full of promise then, and developed great communication skills with social media praised by many. He also contributed to a number of magazines and worked in Mexico and Morocco for some time before initiating Transparency International’s Young Journalists program and sharing insights on investigating public contracts and corruption using data, which is also the reason he joined Open Contracting Partnership where he focuses on coordination and communication in many investigations like the overpriced school notebooks in Nigeria, the innovation in using Instagram as the tool to uncover procurement, and the cooperation with La Contratopedia Caribe in Colombia in many projects.