Spot.us is testing a new idea of journalism. It is inviting readers to hire your own reporters and decide what stories you want to hear. They are calling it: crowdfunding. Cool idea! And it fits right into the micro-fee model we discussed in the previous blog.So far, Spot.us has funded 13 stories since its launch last autumn from a radio show on San Francisco’s new car and tent cities in the economic crisis (listen to the audio) to a news story on the safety of Bay beaches and water after Cosco Busan oil spill a year ago. The stories raised $550 and $560 each.
David Cohn, the 26-year-old founder of Spot.us, is very pleased with what he has achieved: 13 stories have received full funding, and three more are halfway to success. He is ready to bring the half-year-old newborn to the next level Spot.us 2.0.
The idea I like the most is to have a blog with every story pitched and make the reporting process public, which Cohn calls "beat blogging". It'll make reporting more like a video game where game players walk through every scene with the hero.
But the website, as exciting and promising as it seems, faces plenty of challenges. Cohn illustrated some in his post “Spot.us deals with the good and bad of the limitations.” One of its most crucial challenges, I believe, is how to control the quality of the products. The questions that I would like to have Cohn address are:
How much time does the reporters have before a story is published? What does the website do to make sure a story is thoroughly investigated and well written? Is there a screening process for any reporter who pitches a story? How does it work? What if the donors are not happy with the quality and seeking for a refund?
However, it doesn't hurt to try. As professor Jay Rosen told New York Times that: “My own feeling is that we need to try lots of things. Most of them won’t work. You’ll have a lot of failure. But we need to launch a lot of boats.”
In the end, the stimulus bill is a crowdfunding project, isn’t it? We don’t know whether either Spot.us or the stimulus plan is going to work eventually, but “god, we keep trying!” And I hope both "boats" would sail.
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Awesome blog post. Thanks for your interest and support.
ReplyDeleteThere is no "screening" of reporters - simply because: Who am I to decide who should and should not be allowed to create a pitch? I think trying to make that distinction would be a step backwards. That said - We talk to all the reporters who create pitches to make sure they are serious and prepared to do real reporting. If after talking to us we felt they weren't - then we'd take action.
As for timing and quality. We assign independent peer-review editors on every pitch. It's a process that we are still working on - but hope to make more and more progress on.