Spot.us is a San Francisco Bay Area-based, unique approach to the problem facing American Journalism: money. It's founder and now my friend David Cohn created the company to solve the problem of how to fund the work on an investigative journalist. After starting in a bootstrapped fashion, Dave received a good grant from the Knight Foundation to grow his media business.
What Spot.us does is act as a kind of clearing house for story ideas and their authors. One can go to the site and bid on whatever reporters concept is posted. Reporters can use it to raise money for their story project or projects.
At first there were only a handful of stories and video pitches at the site; now there are well over 200 of them by website count. That number reflects both the dire financial straights of journalism, especially in California, where Spot.us' stories are concentrated. But it also shows that there is money out there for those who have a story others feel is worthy of funding.
The base pledge level is $20 and many of the stories in "seeking funding" status have raised hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of dollars. No, one can't consistently make their monthly rent from Spot.us but the service, coupled with other online-generated income, could give a savvy reporter a decent living, even in the Bay Area. Moreover, the reporter would be covering stories they value and not someone's media company.
One example of a story in search of money is a project on Google, called "Questions of Privacy Around Google Book Search." Eric Klien, the reporter who works for KPFA in Berkeley, writes:
Google's bid to digitize millions of books, to be searched, read and purchased online has drawn fire from the publishing industry. Less well known are the serious concerns of privacy advocates that the project represents...A coalition of authors and publishers – including best-sellers Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem is urging a federal judge to reject the proposed settlement in a lawsuit over Google Book Search, arguing that the sweeping agreement to digitize millions of books ignores critical privacy and speech rights for readers and writers. The group filed an objection to the settlement Septemeber 8....I plan to explain this somewhat geeky, internet privacy issue as compelling radio story, with passionate and intelligent voices.
As of this writing Klein has raised $180 of the $280 he needs to get started.
Spot.us needs a widget for blogs
One app that would really make a difference for this organization is a widget that posts the stories and allows one to bid on them without having to visit the site. That way viewers can come to Zennie62.com and bid on the stories. Seriously. Such a widget would extend Spot.us' reach and gain more money for the journalists who use it.
I think the future of Spot.us is a bright one, but I have to admit it opens the door to questions of "who funded what story and why." But frankly ad revenues have always held major away over what gets published or what newspaper is allowed to survive, so I suppose that's nothing really new.
Today, website and video traffic determine what becomes news just as much as ad revenues, so the more things change, the more they stay the same.
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