Spot Us: crowdfunded journalism, coming soon
An interesting new approach to journalism, Spot Us is a “community funded reporting” project that aims to allow individuals and communities to take control of the news by sharing the cost.
Sharing the cost, you say? But news is free!
Well, the news as we know it is provided by large news corporations that determine what type of information gets covered and distributed to us. Using the power of the Internet to distribute information and bring people together, Spot Us applies the crowdfunding model to journalism: members of the community will vote with their money on what stories they’d like to see reported. The money that the audience pledges goes directly to fund the reporting, thus making for truly independent coverage of the topic.
The project has not officially launched yet, but is well on its way, with one story already ‘tipped’–meaning people have collectively pledged enough for a freelance writer to start reporting. And this first story is on ethanol and California’s biofuel usage, being written by our new blog contributor: Alexis Madrigal! (disclaimer: I came across this project on my own and found out he was the first writer later. Really. It’s a small world after all.)
Fundraising efforts for the second story are underway — this one on the San Francisco election, where Newsdesk is promising to fact-check the local election ads running this fall.
Spot Us is pioneered by David Cohn, who won a supporting grant for the project from the Knight Foundation. It’s worth noting that he was awarded a grant from the Young Creator Award category, which recognizes innovative projects from creators 25 and under.
You can find more information about Spot Us on these websites:
http://www.spot.us
http://wiki.spot.us
Comments
Digidave Jul 18, 2008 at 3:22 pm
It is indeed a small world!!
This is something I’m very passionate about, so if anybody has questions, don’t hesitate to contact me: http://spot.us/contact
betelgeezer Jul 21, 2008 at 11:00 am
This is really cool and everything, but does it really scale? Long-form investigative journalism often involves researching stories *before* anyone knows there’s a story… would love to hear more about that — maybe from some working journos?
Alexis Madrigal Jul 21, 2008 at 11:43 pm
I think the question is: scale how? If we’re talking geographically, I think it totally scales along the Gothamist–>Manyist model. Hyperlocal can actually scale well.
I’ll let other people answer your second question, but I’ll just say that I think a certain kind of reporter is going to be interested in using Spot.us. Passion-based projects where they know there’s a story and have already done some legwork that they can bring to the table. Most of us just need some money to go that last-mile and actually write up the story. That’s what Spot.us can provide, I think. As the site develops, too, I would hope that communities that know their own stories better than any reporter start pooling their resources to bring on journos to do the case-building, slogging, and writing.
Ben Jervey Jul 22, 2008 at 3:31 pm
This concept is nothing short of brilliant. I’m currently working with the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) to launch a citizen journalism platform with a focus on local environmental and sustainability issues, and I see such great potential for following up on the ideas and issues that surface through our CJ model using the Spot.us system. Critical ideas and issues will surface from the passionate, volunteer citizens that report on our site, but many of them will require follow-up real reporting from experienced journalists. And as a writer myself, I feel strongly that the division between “citizen journalism” and funded reporting is still necessary. (Journalists who are being compensated have the time and resource to dig deeper than the “average joe” who posts about something in his/her neighborhood that they’re passionate about.)
I’m rambling, but I def see this Spot.us service as being an incredible way to fund solid reporting on issues that are brought to the surface, hopefully by resources like the Citzen Journalism one we’re soon to launch.
I’ll plan on connecting soon with the founder.