Community Funded Reporting

This is one of 134,134,653,324 ideas• We can experiment with networked

reporting, new editorial structures, storytelling tools, p data base journalism and more.

Why Experiment?

• Rule of the Internet: Cheaper/Easier to try than to debate about trying.

• Stems from “Agile and Iterative” Fail early, fail often - try again.

Collaboration• Content is King and is the most important.

• Collaboration is Queen and is the most powerful

Foundation for Collaboration• Trust: Work with folks you can trust

• Never forced: In interest of all parties

• “Buy in” with decision makers

• Key liaison: Somebody from all parties tasked to project

• Commitment of time/resources or money. Doesn’t need to be all three

• The story/project: Must be at the heart of everything.

Community Funded Reporting!

• Distributing the cost of hiring a reporter across many different people.

You can steal this idea!• No joke: There are several ways - ask me

how.

What Does it Look Like?

The Theory of Donating• People donate to NPR all the time. What’s the big deal?

Throwing money over a wall

vs......

Transparency and Control

What YOU can do.

• Get involved.

• Journalism is not passive.

• Spot.Us only works if our society gets passionate about journalism.