Just two days into the year and already news of ventures into a different type of funding for serious journalism – move away from advertisers and instead look to those affected by the results for revenue.
Attach the cash to the process rather than the product.
The Independent today points up two such initiatives – ProPublica in the States and The Global Mail in Australia – which are giving it a go.
“On New Year’s Eve, the New York-based ProPublica organisation sent out a message to its 94,000 Twitter followers appealing for tax-deductible donations to help it fund its investigations. This was no desperate appeal. Two years ago this non-profit independent newsroom was supported by 100 donors; now it has 1,300. And for the past two years it has been able to put Pulitzer prizes on its shelf to show its value.
“The model has helped inspire an Australian initiative called The Global Mail, which will launch next month in Sydney as an online news organisation with 17 staff and an annual budget of nearly £2m. For the first five years of its existence, The Global Mail will be underwritten by Graeme Wood, an entrepreneur and philanthropist. The team are promising not only investigations but analytical reporting and colour writing. They intend to update their website daily.”
And closer to home, The Scottish independent title Caledonian Mercury yesterday announced it would be pursuing something similar:
“We want to start carrying out investigations – funded by our readers.
The Caledonian Mercury still stands for independent, investigative Scottish journalism. It aims to bring facts to bear on – and be an honest broker for – the debate over Scotland’s future. It is a platform for the voices of Scotland not heard in the media and we want it to be a place to discover emerging journalists.”
It will be fascinating to see how these, and other ventures progress. The editorial and technical issues which such a development requires certainly throw up interesting things to wrestle with eg. how is the topic for investigation chosen? how is political influence/imbalance kept at bay? who keeps a check on the checkers? how much is any such activity worth? what happens to the cash/interest if the investigation proves to be a dead end or throws up something unintended? what technologies and tools can be deployed?
Definitely an area to keep tabs on this year.
Picture: Flickr user Matthew Wilkinson
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