New Journalism Models and Spot.Us Public Funding

There's a recording of an interesting discussion, including my BNET colleague David Weir, about new business models for journalism. Another participant was someone from Spot.Us, a site at which the public can suggest stories and journlaists can seek community funding for reporting projects. It's an intriguing approach. A reporter can pitch a story and see whether people will pay money to see it. If you, the writer, get the funding and do the story to eventually place it somewhere, you pay back the money you were fronted and the contributors get a refund. If you can't sell the story, it becomes something available under a Creative Commons license, making it open for distribution. Looking at the site, I noticed one story about sustainable school lunches for which the site had raised $120 out of a target $380. Another story had raised $920 out of $1000. This is a site that is definitely worth checking.