Follow the Governance (FTG) is an investigative approach, methodology and toolset for journalists and other researchers. Its main objective is to help and make easier for journalists to look into, research in a structured way, and report on the governance system that a given topic depends on. The FTG methodology and this website are the work of freelance journalist Jose Miguel Calatayud.
By “governance system”, I mean the set of resources, infrastructure, actors, responsibilities, norms and practices that shape how a given activity, field or sector works (I elaborate on this definition on the “follow the money — and the governance” page).
For instance, if the topic is tap water in a city, the governance system includes the raw resource (probably groundwater); the infrastructure to gather it, process it and transport it; the owners and operators of such resources and infrastructure, as well as their shareholders, funders and other enablers; the responsibility chain; the beneficiaries and the groups and communities affected in different ways; the norms and established practices…
I started thinking of how to research such issues as I realised that we journalists and newsrooms in mainstream media often fail to describe and explain to our audiences — explicitly, clearly and in a structured way — the governance system behind the topics we investigate.
Governance systems are often taken for granted by the public, some of their aspects effectively invisible, unknown or not understood. Many investigations, and some news coverage, do mention some aspects of the governance system behind the topics they’re reporting on. But I find that they tend to do so implicitly, and normally there’s no explicit, clear and structured description and explanation of how governance systems work.
That may be also due to the fact that governance systems can be very complex and difficult to research in detail. Investigating a particular governance system may demand a lot of time and work, and the reporting may fit more comfortably in a book or PhD thesis than in a couple of stories accessible to the general public.
Hence the need, opportunity and challenge of developing a methodology that’s simple enough and can really help journalists to research and report on governance systems by investing a reasonable amount of time and producing content that’s relevant and accessible to mainstream audiences.
From “The Politics of Everything” to “Follow the Governance”
How a particular governance system develops is a political process, in which some actors have access to decision-making while others are excluded, there are competing interests (including between private and the public interest), and in the end some groups and organisations benefit while others lose out — or may even be harmed by the governance system.
That’s why, when I started thinking of working on a methodology to look at governance systems, I called it “The Politics of Everything”. And based on that idea, I was able to get a European Journalism Fellowship by the Free University Berlin (funded by the Foundation Presse-Haus NRZ) to work — between October 2023 and July 2024 — on developing such an investigative methodology for journalists and other researchers.
Soon enough, I thought that “governance” was the most useful concept to frame and also name the methodology I wanted to develop, and I then started calling the project “Investigating Governance”.
Finally, and in order to benefit from the fact that many journalists and other researchers know about the “Follow the Money” investigative approach and methodology, I landed on “Follow the Governance (FTG)”, as the way to think of, call and describe to others this new methodology.
Besides, I believe that the FTG methodology is a good complement to “Follow the Money”. Because where many investigations that follow the money do reveal corruption and other wrongdoing, I found that often such investigations don’t describe and explain clearly, comprehensively and systematically the governance system that allows for or makes such wrongdoing to happen.
This website
On this website, I am describing the “follow the governance” methodology and explaining what others can do with it, so that other journalists and researchers working in the public interest can use it, adapt it and contribute to it if they like. Because I am based in and covering Europe, most of the examples I’m using focus indeed on Europe; but I believe the FTG approach and methodology can be used and applied to anywhere.
First, you can read more about how FTG relates and compares to “follow the money” in the next page, “follow the money — and the governance“. Then, you can delve deeper into “the FTG methodology“, and how it can be used to take editorial decisions, guide the research and produce journalistic outputs. You can also have a look at three case studies I started working on: “natural gas in Europe“, “online advertising & personal data“, and “AI governance“. And you can also read about “what next” for this website and the “follow the governance” approach and methodology.