News: No Funding Model Yet

There's an interesting article in the NY Times about crowdfunding, written by Sarah Kershaw.

She reports that Spot Us in the San Francisco Bay Area is asking its users for story ideas and the funding to cover those stories. It's an interesting idea, which like all ideas, has its weaknesses. Such as, lobbyists could buy the news they want covered. And how could you fund investigative journalism?

I find it interesting that in 2008 there's still no definitive model for a new way to fund news emerging.

There's a new reality. A huge amount of very cheap publishing is going on. Funding is migrating away from expensive methods of publishing. Consumers are using their feed readers to create their own newspapers. They've become publishers creating self built "newspapers" each with a run of one copy. The feed reader melds the publisher and the consumer into the same person. Podcasting does the same for radio. YouTube, Netflix and all the other sources of online video eliminate the need for television.

That new reality has some funding components. Newspapers and smaller online publications sell online advertising. Sponsorship and grants offer another source of revenue. Membership is a third, crowdfunding, according to Kershaw's article, is a fourth and there are more. Kershaw's article mentions Pro Publica and Jay Rosen's Assignment Zero.

The article ends quoting Rosen saying "My own feeling is that we need to try lots of things. ... we need to launch lots of boats."

This has to be true. To continue the analogy, it's as if the ocean got shallower. It's now covered in little boats crossing the water that once only the big liners could sail. And the liners are having their bottoms ripped open. They have to draw less water or run aground. They have to evolve into fleets of little boats. And little boats can be funded in many different ways.