More newsrooms are working together — and with a range of other organizations — to help inform the public and tackle larger, more complex stories. But like anything else, collaboration takes planning to get right. These efforts are more nuanced than normal, however, as different organizations approach with different goals and objectives.

Technology has created new problems - and solutions - for government accountability. In Colorado, a transparency group hopes to develop and adopt best practices for its state.

Amid #metoo stories and Hollywood’s women coalescing around a fight against sexual assault and harassment in the workplace, there’s finally some good news: President Donald Trump has signed the SAFER (Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence Reporting) Act of 2017. In doing so, Trump reauthorized the original SAFER Act of 2013, extending and strengthening efforts to eliminate the nationwide rape kit backlog.

The SAFER Working Group combined authorities from local police departments, the FBI, state crime laboratories, government institutions, colleges, medical examiners, and nurses, which met for more than two years before penning the first federal guidelines for sexual assault evidence collection. This document is undeniably a step in the right direction, but will local law enforcement agencies and state and private laboratories implement these recommendations?