Comments on: Proof of Concept – Coming Up!

By: Alexis Madrigal Is Doing “Spot Reporting” « Spot Us - The Blog

Alexis Madrigal Is Doing “Spot Reporting” « Spot Us - The Blog — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:56:26 +0000

[...] and Spot Reporting Digidave 9:54 am On Monday we announced the first successful pitch on Spot Us. But, to be honest, we are only halfway there. We raised the money for a reporter (and [...]

By: Spot.us: primer artículo financiado por la comunidad | astillero

Spot.us: primer artículo financiado por la comunidad | astillero — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:16:21 +0000

[...] el blog de Spot.us, David hace un repaso muy completo a este caso concreto: qué ha funcionado, qué no, y qué hay que mejorar para el siguiente. Dentro de lo que ha [...]

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:26:19 +0000

Congrats on your success! There’s a site out there that does crowdfunding for filmmakers called IndieGoGo. Filmmakers can post their projects online and try to get money for them.

The site uses the same ingredients that you have used in funding your project.

Check it out: http://www.indiegogo.com

By: Digidave

Digidave — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:39:09 +0000

@Andrew
At this stage: me.
Later on: Every story gets an independent quality assurance editor who receives 10% of the money donated. Their ONLY job is to fact-check and to ensure fairness.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:36:22 +0000

Does Spot.Us have a plan for making sure reporters don’t have a conflict of interest with the stories they work on? Saw this article today which prompted my question: http://tinyurl.com/644bvq

By: Jason Preston

Jason Preston — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:19:57 +0000

Congrats on the proof of concept, David. Like you said, for a first go-through-the-motions pitch, this is a great success.

I think Spot Us is working on a great concept, and one that will likely resonate with the public, not unlike Obama’s fund raising has.

One of the things I’m curious to see as the project moves forward, is where your donations come from. It will be interesting to see if they track to hyper-local sources, or if you get regular donors from Milwaukee.

By: Digidave

Digidave — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:17:55 +0000

@Daniel
I’ll be honest – I haven’t put a LOT of thought about how universities might use it for their paper.

But I have thought about how J-students might use it to build up their portfolio while getting paid at the same time.

Since work is licensed under Creative Commons, any work they do could be published on their college newspaper, but the newspaper would have to realize that they won’t get a “scoop” – they will be publishing something that might also appear elsewhere. Still – that’s a lesson in the economics of content.

By: Daniel Bachhuber

Daniel Bachhuber — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:06:49 +0000

I’m interested in how this concept might apply to college journalism. If you think the big newspapers are being hit hard by the digital revolution, you should take a look at the college newspapers. Not many people are optimistic at this point. Have you considered how the might fit in the picture?

Also, I agree with you, Dave, on the issue of transparency. Transparency is about openness and, if only one type of story is being published, we’ll at least be able to see who is so gung-ho about getting that story out.

By: Digidave

Digidave — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:23:48 +0000

Andrew
Excellent question and in fact, it is something I’ve thought about.

It could work too – it’s almost a reverse transparency issue. Instead of forcing transparency – we will force anonymity so the money can’t influence anything.

Bottom line: There is no such thing as “clean money.” I don’t think making the donation anonymous will make things clean. I think making things transparent will at least allow the readers to make their own decision.

Also: because we solicit small donations (there is a cap on how much people can donate), there is the hope that bias’ from one direction or the other will cancel each other out.

But by no means is this figured out 100%. That’s just my approach right now. You may very well have hit on an issue/solution that spot.us will have to take one day.

But here’s a counter-situation to what you just tweeted me: “Hypothetical: Would Spot.Us take a hefty donation from an ethanol company to help write a story about ethanol?”

What if a clothing company wanted to give a donation to the Ethanol story? They have no stake in it – what they want is to publicly give back to civic society (and get good PR for it). That money isn’t “dirty” at all and all that’s needed to solicit it is to give the clothing company recognition for giving back.

Just another scenario.

Best

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:07:15 +0000

David, congrats on your first funded project. One thing occurred to me while reading this post – the identity of the funders. I’m wondering if it might be best that future story funders remain completely anonymous (maybe even from Spot.Us as well). Part of what intrigues me about Spot.Us is that it could keep corporate or political bias from influencing the reporting. Posting the names of individual donors (and their affiliation) might make it more difficult for Spot.Us or the journalist to claim objectivity. Just a knee-jerk thought after reading this post.