http://signup.uncoverage.com/
This video shows off the working model and ideals of just one crowdfunded journalism platform of which there are many. At 0:27 in the video there is a quote that helps illustrate the typical ideals of the majority of crowdfunded news outlets.
"The biggest problem in investigative journalism today is that there is no business model to fund this kind of work."
- Bill Buzenburg, Director, Centre for Pubic Integrity
Their general slogan is that 'the news is broken, lets fix it' ... This will be a recurring theme i think !
2. Beacon:
http://www.beaconreader.com/
So good for both audience and journalist in theory, this is crowdfunding and publishing platform. You can choose to fund a selection of your favourite journalists, or fund specific projects that interest you. Interestingly it responded quickly to the recent race issues in Ferguson getting journalists to cover the story following support online:
"We realised that readership inside of Beacon was definitely interested in getting more coverage," Adrian Sanders, co-founder of Beacon Reader, told Journalism.co.uk. "Usually the way it's set up is oriented towards writers getting more funding through their network and the stuff they want to do.
"But that topic-oriented approach was something that came out of the situation in Ferguson, people saying 'do you have anyone on the ground there? 'Can I put money into Beacon and have that go towards coverage?' And we realised that we could do that very quickly."If I wasn't here I would want to know exactly what was going on and not just how mainstream news portrays itMariah Stewart, freelance journalist, Beacon Reader
I'm not sure if this is democracy in action or pandering to the crowd though? Its an interesting model though and certainly it feels like consumer driven news that makes a serious break from hegemonic power based institutions.
Another interesting development is that they have recently added a page called 'Bounties' in which consumers put up their own stories that they want developed. If it gathers enough support and funding then a Beacon journalist is assigned to the job and they write a long-form piece on the topic.
3. El Español:
One of the biggest crowdfunding success stories, it feels much more like a broadsheet newspaper rather than a journalistic platform:
Madrid-based ElEspañol.com broke the world record for crowdfunding journalism Saturday, according to their website.
Rosa, a woman in Madrid, bought five shares of El Español to surpass the previous record set by the Dutch website De Correspondent in 2013.
(http://throughcracks.com/crowdfunding-journalism-elespanol-world-record/)
Its interesting to us here as genuine competition for some of Spain's daily newspapers such as El Pais or El Mundo. This is clearly a consumer backed, audience driven daily newspaper that is trying to take on the established names in the industry. There is a really interesting article here about how the Editor of the paper was ousted from his previous job at El Mundo because of government pressure and as a result tried to set up a new paper free from hegemonic interference of the powerful elite:
"We are trying to provide an alternative to the traditional newspaper," says Mr Ramirez, who wants El Espanol to compete with the digital versions of Spain's leading newspapers, including El Mundo.
"That is probably why our project is different to all the others, not only in Spain, but in Europe. We are going to become the model. Paper is dead, with no possibility of recuperation."
4. Press Start:
This is another twist on the crowdfunding model as it specifically addresses the niche of funding the work of journalists in places where press freedom does not exist or is at its lowest. At the moment it seems to be focussing on Eastern Europe and the Balkans but it could help shape a future platform for other regions.
5. Contributoria:
An interesting example for this project as it was co-funded by an already existing news organisation (the Guardian Media Group).
More of a project / experiment in funding than a full scale news business to compete with the big industry players this has now shut down but has left its articles online.
NOTE ;
As i was researching this post I found this website which is essentially doing this job for me, there seem to be a plethora of options for the crowdfunded journalist !
There are also many many more crowdfunded journalism websites such as:
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