There are frequent discussions around this corner of the Internets about the Future of Journalism and Why Online Journalism Can’t Pay Anyone, etc. We’re not sure what the future holds, either, but we’re willing to try new things to see what works for Smile Politely and Champaign-Urbana.
Recently, we were made aware of a site called Spot.us, which serves as a clearinghouse for investigative journalism pitches. Spot.us allows writers’ ideas to be “crowd-funded” by individuals who want to see particular issues explored in more detail. It’s a great idea; as they describe it, it’s sort of like supporting NPR, except your money goes directly to the writer of the story that you want to see covered. And it should work perfectly for a hyper-local site like Smile Politely, where our writers are directly involved in the stories they cover.
As a trial balloon, we’ve posted a pitch for Brenda Koenig to finish her series on recycling in Champaign Urbana. You may remember part one of that series, posted last November, titled “Is your recycling being dumped in a landfill?” Brenda dug up all sorts of interesting information, but she uncovered even more questions the more she dug. Being able to pay Brenda would really help move that project forward. We’ve set a goal of $250 to fund this project, and set a deadline of July 31.
How can you help? Well, you don’t even necessarily have to dig into your wallet to contribute. Right now, if you sign up for a Spot.us account and take a sponsored survey about Net Neutrality (I just did it, and it was informative and painless and took about five minutes), you get a $7 credit to apply to any pitch you want. If you want to toss in a few bucks in addition to that, great, but just applying the credits to Brenda’s goal would be a huge help. All the money will go to Brenda, provided the goal is met; if it falls short, nobody gets it.
If this works well, we might try to apply it to other stories that have been under-reported in the dominant media. If you have suggestions or feedback, please let us know in the comments. Thanks for supporting investigative journalism in C-U!