The following post comes to us from Sameer Bhuchar, who is helping Spot.Us from Austin.

It has been said a thousand times before: The landscape of the modern media is changing. With today’s more complex, active Internet ecosystem, the accepted norms of journalism are constantly being rewritten or tossed out all together. The Internet has bypassed the once highly regarded norms of gatekeepers at a news desk, and it now it seems to be challenging the long held model of objectivity in journalism.

If there is an underlying theme to Spot.Us it is the idea that we expect our community to tell us what is important in journalism, rather than dictate it ourselves. With that in mind, several weeks ago, thanks to a generous sponsorship from Clay Shirky, we asked for your honest feedback about objectivity and journalism. We let the 500 users who took the survey decide where the sponsorship dollars should go. In other words, we handed over a part of our budget to community members who let us figure out what the ethos is around objectivity in journalism. Community-focused sponsorship for the win! (Try our newest CFS. Let us know about important story ideas in your region and fund a story on Spot.Us for free).

Survey Results

Is there a clear divide between those who support the traditional idea of objectivity and those who take a different stance? Are there exceptions to the standard? How should journalism work for you? Some believe objectivity means reporting facts without bias, and that an article must be balanced and include multiple points of view. To many, objectivity in journalism is the most important standard of the profession. It was once considered the glue of the business, the one aim that let media consumers decide for themselves what was right and wrong.

Increasingly, however, the idea of traditional objectivity is being challenged by this new, proactive age of media consumers. To those who challenge the ideal, it is an outdated standard that has crippled journalists from digging deep into stories.

Keep in mind the survey results are not scientific and, as the political leanings graph shows, there was perhaps a self-selecting audience (the Spot.Us community). Nonetheless, with 500 respondents there was a diverse set of answers.

First and foremost it is important to note that about 52 percent of the survey takers were female and 48 percent male.

Also, close to 60 percent of the respondents identified themselves as liberals, with only 10.8 percent identifying as conservative. Close to 30 percent said they were independents. This could be reflective of where Spot.Us’ traffic comes from (heavy in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and New York).

Responses to the question, “Is objectivity even possible?” show there are a large percentage of people with a changing idea about objectivity. Of the survey questions, perhaps this one and the responses associated with it were the most telling when it comes to attitudes towards objectivity. Only 13.5 percent (60 respondents) very clearly identified “objectivity” as being what journalism is all about.

This view point can best be explained through Spot.Us member Craig Gaines‘ extended response. “I define an objective piece as one that represents all viewpoints in a piece and allows readers to make up their minds about those viewpoints,” Gaines said. “To do anything less is a disservice to, and disrespectful of, the reader.”

A staggering 44.6 percent (199) people agreed with the answer, “Objectivity is possible but difficult. It separates wheat from chaff.” In essence the answer implies that objectivity should be seen more as a quest for honest, factual reporting. Spot.Us member (and NewsTrust executive director) Fabrice Florin summed up this viewpoint well.

While objectivity is difficult to achieve, it is an important journalistic quality to strive for, particularly for factual news reporting, not for opinion pieces,” Florin said. “For news reports, a neutral perspective helps present views from different sides without interjecting the author’s personal opinions. Authors are welcome to post their own perspectives in their own opinion pieces, as long as they are clearly labeled as such. But journalists who want to serve society as neutral observers and referees should continue to report objectively on public issues they cover.

Of the respondents, 27.6 percent (123 people) chose the answer “transparency is the new objectivity,” implying that it is the reporting of truth that is most important, rather than a detached account of a scene.

“I think that reporters ought to reveal their biases in each story as part of the narrative so as to partially disarm whatever criticism of bias they may receive,” said member Paul Balcerak. “Doing so will provide a better service to the public and will create better journalism.”

There were also 55 people who believed objectivity was impossible, and 9 people went as far to answer that objectivity “is a crutch to prop old media up.”

This is all just the tip of the iceberg. Other questions sought to discover the community’s view of how important objectivity is (always required, sometimes, never, etc.), and to help gauge the respondents’ relationship to journalism (a professor or as an avid news reader, for example). We believe that in aggregate this survey provides unique insight into what people from the Spot.Us community want and expect from the media.

To drive the point home, we’ve included anecdotal responses from our insightful community members who gave us permission to publish their answers. (These were used to create the above Wordle.)

Perhaps what we can learn from all of this is that objectivity, while important as an ideal of fairness, should not be seen as a way of achieving “detached-ness,” if you will. But heck, this blog post is by no means unbiased, so even that assumption may not be accurate, or apply to you personally. One thing the respondents did uniformly agree upon is that reporters should unabashedly seek truth. While pure objectivity may be impossible, being honest isn’t.

Community Views

Below is a selection of comments from the wisest people we know — our community. Here’s what they had to say about objectivity:

“In journalism school I was very swayed by the ‘Transparency IS the new objectivity’ school of thinking, and the notion that everyone has bias and perspective, and so any attempt to avoid that is foolhardy. From my insider perspective, my own biases and opinions seemed magnified and huge. However, since I haven’t been working as a journalist and have been, instead, consuming local media (increasingly independent and citizen/blog driven, as the local establishment journalism withers away) I’ve longed for the ideal of objectivity while recognizing it might never have been truly practiced. I’ve grown to strongly dislike the strongly and biased opinionated citizen journalism I am now surrounded by, because it so often willfully refuses to dig deeper and more broadly and is so very proud of its ‘perspective’. I am often left with a long list of simple questions I think *I* would have asked just to get the whole story.” — Saheli Datta

“I don’t believe what we’ve traditionally defined as objectivity in the media is actually objectivity–it’s more like perceived impartiality. I think that reporters ought to reveal their biases in each story as part of the narrative (writing in first-person would make the process a lot less awkward, by the way) so as to partially disarm whatever criticism of bias they may receive. Doing so will provide a better service to the public and will create better journalism.” – Paul Balcerak

“Objectivity was a marketing technique invented by the AP 100 + years ago. It’s well suited for monopoly style newspaper production but shits the bed when media representation of similar events increases… Debunking objectivity as a concept is as easy as shooting ducks in duck hunt, but fact of the matter is that if *we didn’t* believe in objectivity our lives would be intolerable.

“Therefore the question isn’t about whether objectivity in journalism is possible, it’s how does a person come to see media as objective? That’s where things get interesting and where a lot is getting disrupted. The meaning of an event doesn’t happen until it’s represented and what we are seeing is an explosion in meaning at the sign of *any event*. See Stuart Hall, he’s pre-Twitter but his points are just as valid.” — Cody Brown

“Transparency means more than understanding where the journalist’s bias lies; it means that the journalist or reporter does things like crowdsource some questions, work in partnership with community journalism initiatives already underway, blog about the progress on a story and explain what the next steps are (unless it’s a super-secret undercover investigation), record interviews and give public access to the full transcript as well as the audio file, etc. Transparency means addressing reader concerns and input about pieces and continuing the conversation after one story is published.” — Suzi Steffen

“A journalist’s background certainly matters in how they interpret subjects, but the job is to look close, ask questions, and get the details right. More and more, unfortunately, it’s also about checking out sources and making sure none of them are lying. With more and more resources dedicated to “spin” this part is important and often accounts for why a lot of people reject a good story as objective or biased – because they’ve been dished the spin in other platforms. But objectivity really is the name of the game.” — Lee van der Voo

“In most mainstream news reports I hear, including a good number on NPR, there’s an annoying trend toward presenting one side and then the other, while completely evading the question of which side might be right! This is a perverted effect of the mania that journalism has for supposedly unbiased an objective reporting. Too often in the name of objectivity journalists avoid taking principled stands on anything; too often monied interests can distract the public’s attention from their own dubious business practices by trotting out a voice of dissent rationalizing their stand — which, of course, will get equal air-time.” — Anneke Toomey

“There is a saying somewhere: Objectivity is not possible, but fairness is. That is to say: are all sides, all points of view represented honestly and with the same weight? Ultimately, I’d say objectivity is a personal trait, fairness is a professional trait that pertains to our profession as journalists. Strive for fairness.” –  Barbara Gref

“No journalist is truly objective, if that term is meant to mean someone who has no opinions about the subjects he or she covers. Subjectivity starts right from the point at which a journalist chooses a subject to cover and goes right on through to who is interviewed, what quotations are selected, how the headline is written, and on and on. But what makes journalism different from other practices with which it is sometimes confused, such as PR or politics, is that journalists are in the business of *independent* verification of fact.” — Robert McClure

“No one is truly unbiased or objective but that doesn’t mean that a good reporter doesn’t look for the truth behind everyone’s agenda. Objectivity means not sitting on a story that would make someone look bad just because you’re invested in their success. I almost said “Transparency is the new objectivity” only because it is the latest and most fabulous word to throw around. Transparency only helps identify lapses in objectivity, it doesn’t replace it. As for transparency, it certainly helps identify lapses in objectivity, but it doesn’t replace it.” — Amanda Hickman

“Objectivity often means portraying both sides of the story but without considering power & privilege, you can never get both sides of story. It would be like looking at African Americans & crime in inner cities without looking at the effects of institutional racism and how poverty/availability of drugs/housing blight/welfare policies etc contributes to crime. Journalism needs to put more emphasis on telling the stories of the underserved and marginalized and those most impacted the those who have power.” — Micky Duxbury

“No one is objective. The best we can do (instead of  pretending to be objective) is being transparent about our biases so readers are aware and can judge our content as they feel is appropriate. That said, it doesn’t mean we should turn every article into a ranting, biased blog post, or even take a side on an issue we’re covering. We just need to stop pretending true “Objectivism” exists.” — Lauren Rabaino

“While objectivity is difficult to achieve, it is an important journalistic quality to strive for, particularly for factual news reporting (not for opinion pieces). For news reports, a neutral perspective helps present views from different sides without interjecting the author’s personal opinions. Authors are welcome to post their own perspectives in their own opinion pieces, as long as they are clearly labeled as such. But journalists who want to serve society as neutral observers and referees should continue to report objectively on public issues they cover.” – Fabrice Florin

“I find writing by people who disclose and discuss their biases/backgrounds dramatically more compelling than sterile I-refuse-to-take-sides-so-decide-for-yourself writing. I think it’s possible to explain and analyze both sides of a story and fulfill a journalistic purpose without sitting on the fence.” – Katie Lohrenz

“Everyone has opinions, and we are all entitled to have them. Journalists are no different. I like it when a journalist tells me how he/she arrived at an opinion, and any part of his/her backstory that will help me to assess credibility. Transparency is certainly part of the picture. What isn’t helpful is a journalist who simply reports the sound bite from one side and then gathers the sound bite from another side and calls it a story – without stopping to investigate whether the facts can back up either side.” — Laurie Pumper

“I don’t think it is absolutely necessary to be objective, but if you aren’t going to be objective, it is absolutely necessary to be honest about it.” — Luke Gies

“Objectivity should be the goal for journalism. Reporting all sides of the story without bias is ideal. Unfortunately we live in a very polarized climate. Shock value, knee jerk reactions and stubborn opinion rule the day. I really appreciate news sources that don’t resort to playing to that audience.” — Marie Rafalko

“Basically, ‘objectivity’ in journalism began post WWII as a strategy to make news content more palatable to a broader advertiser base. That worked — and it helped enable newspaper consolidation in many cities. But the strategy took on a life of its own — and while it yielded some benefits, it’s a fundamentally not credible premise. Journalism is created by people, and people are not objective. As media has become multidirectional, it’s become ridiculous to try to ignore that reality. News organizations that choose a veneer of objectivity over the practice of transparency undermine their own credibility. The sad thing is, many news orgs cling to their veneer of objectivity because they think it builds credibility. They’re eating their own dog food.” — Amy Gahran

“I chose my answer by eliminating the others. I know it’s not always possible. It’s really tough. But transparency is absolutely not an alternative to objectivity. Fox News is transparent. It’s not good journalism. Saying transparency can replace objectivity basically says that journalism can be produced by interest groups, as long as they’re honest about who they are. That’s no good for anyone, except for the interest groups.” — Molly Samuel

“The U.S. journalism establishment has determined that they are smarter than consumer sand therefore must talk down, water down, simplify news stories. Their fear was that no one would read the paper. Really.

“If all the facts were reported AND an effort was made to make media literacy an elementary school requirement we might have real journalism again in this country in a generation or so. Or promote and support online platforms that present facts and commentary separately. Then let traditional media fend for themselves.” – Todd O’Neill

“It’s never possible, but always desirable. That is, complete objectivity is probably impossible, because we aren’t always aware of our prejudices. But, it is what we should strive for, regardless. So, it is very important to attempt, but also to be aware that we may have blind spots, in order to avoid the arrogance of believing you are able to step completely out of your own biases.” — Rebecca Church

“To an extent, I agree with ‘Transparency is the new objectivity,’ but I don’t think it’s sufficient. I think pursuing objectivity while being transparent is crucial. Journalists should make every effort to escape their biases, explore other perspectives, and challenge their assumptions of what are and are not significant/authoritative voices, but they shouldn’t do so at the cost of reporting and storytelling. However, they should acknowledge where they can where they are coming from, what perspectives they might take into the discussion, and what assumptions they are starting with so readers/audiences are able to make an informed analysis of the journalist’s credibility.” — Bill Lascher

“‘Transparency is the new objectivity’ is a fun riff, and it’s close, but I think we (in the media business) grossly overstate the public’s interest in our affiliations and conflicts.” — Ryan Sholin

“Science, going back to the Heisenberg principle in the 1920s has proven that observation has an effect on the thing observed. Also, you can play ‘he said-she said’ journalism, but one statement has to come before the other. Determining the order is the reporter or editor’s subjective choice and determines the slant of the story.” — Kellia Ramares

“Objectivity is not rewarded by anyone, not the public and not the corporate new organizations. It’s become like Don Quixote chasing windmills.” — Shari Brandhoy

“Objectivity is impossible. There is no such thing as a human or institution without opinion. Therefore, it’s best for us to know the bias of the reporters. That said, a statement of bias doesn’t give license to lie or omit facts. Transparency is twofold:
• a statement of bias
• a commitment to releasing all information in an honest manner.” — Joey Baker

“Shirky has made me bias on the topic – journalist was a special class of citizen when you needed a press. Now every resident has a responsibility to be a journalist. Who is going to write about neighborhoods – when crime is not the topic? Newspapers and other media outlets have always done a poor job covering my home. So who does that responsibility fall to – someone with a stake in the future of that neighborhood. And while I want accuracy and independence, I want the reporter, journalist, or citizen to offer their educated take on what this all means for the future of the area.” – Eddie North-Hager

“The very definition of dialectic is pastiche. How can anyone be objective while still being informed? Transparency at least offers honesty and a path for the reader to follow.” — Clarisa Morales Roberts

“I define an objective piece as one that represents all viewpoints in a piece and allows readers to make up their minds about those viewpoints. To do anything less is a disservice to, and disrespectful of, the reader.” — Craig Gaines

“There is fairness but not objectivity. Everyone decides where to look, what facts to portray, how to frame what they’re seeing. Even a pointed camera is not objective — where the lens is pointed, how the zoom is set … these all determine what’s seen and how.” — Dorian Benkoil

“Debating object/subject is an endless philosophical waste of time. Facts, and trends, data, information, systems analysis all are much more relevant to discourse around solving the complex problems we face today and in the future.” — Stephen Antonaros

“I believe that objectivity is the single most dangerous goal journalism can work towards. It is impossible for a human being to produce a genuinely non-biased piece of writing, but it is simple for a writer to mimic the tone of authority that a member of society is educated to frame as truth. Journalism should strive for transparency – not as a new objectivity, but as a drastically different and more democratic concept of media’s responsibility to present and portray information.” — Rebecca Glaser

“Objectivity is impossible, it’s an illusion and a myth often used to maintain flat, two-dimensional reporting that implies there are simply “two sides.” What’s far more important is accuracy, vigorous inquiry and story dimension–looking for texture and layers of debate, and letting the facts tell the story; two ‘sides’ are not ‘equal’ if one is heavily fact-based and the other is just opinion.” — Christopher Cook

We are launching an exciting new project covering overlooked, quality of life issues across Los Angeles, with a focus on health, land use and transportation with the support of the California Endowment. And we’re looking for a senior reporter based in L.A. to join our team, starting in October for 10 months.

This person will supervise a blogger as well as produce 10 stories on his or her own, one a month. Each story pitch will be posted on LA.Spot.Us so that the individual, while guaranteed a base fee of $1,500 per month, could earn more by raising funds through our crowdsourcing model.

The successful candidate will be a balanced, thorough writer with deep community connections and the ability to gracefully multitask while meeting deadline. Speaking Spanish is an advantage. To apply, please email writing samples, resume with contact information for two references and a list of story ideas to info@spot.us.

We will also be looking for freelancers to propose projects for this project.

Spot.us is an equal opportunity employer.

In the last two weeks stories funded by the Spot.Us community have continued to generate buzz with a number of media outlets throughout the country, proving once again that the public, when given the chance, can help set a strong news agenda.

Highlight
In Seattle, our partners at Investigate West finished their story on the environmental impact of cruise liners. The pledges ranged from $5 to $100, and most totaled $20. In the end we learned of the detrimental activities and rule-dodging some of these cruise liners engage in that are continually harming the oceans. The story was so strong that 10 other media organizations (SeattlePI.com, Spokesman Review, The Tyee, Daily Casserole and others) republished it. Also check out the project’s final update “Investigate West and the grassroots model: It works!”

Witness LA
Our Los Angeles social justice partners, Witness LA, finished the first in a two-part series on the prominence of L.A. gangs and the significance of their growing capital. The report hit the internet and was immediately mentioned and recognized by  powerful players in the media world. Who? Try LA Times, LAist, LA Weekly, LA Observed and MediaFishbowl, just to name a few.

Solar Power Story
And finally, the Erica Gies story on Solar Waste Recycling, produced with the SF Public Press, was recycled by 12 publications! You can read the final version of it here. If you scroll down to the bottom you’ll see the list of republishing sites which includes The Bay Citizen, Way Out West News, The Daily Green, KALW – Crosscurrents and eight others.

Publishing this week
It’s a busy week here at Spot.Us. Every day we are publishing part of the investigation into the Centinela School District. The first part, released Monday, includes a heart-tugging tale of a teacher transferred to another school in front of her classroom. Also published is a classic story of “follow the trash” in partnership with Champaign-Urbana publication Smile Politely. Finally – a look at why Los Angeles leads in drive-by shootings, and soon with our friends at Oakland Local, an investigation into the new Oakland Chief of Police.

PHEW….. Did you get all that?

NEW PITCHES!

Out with the old and in with the new. We have a slew of new pitches at Spot.Us that range from homelessness in LA and SF and attempts to create no-kill shelters in Los Angeles, all the way to troubled high-rises in Minnesota and gang issues along Lake Michigan. We’ve also redesigned how we present our pitches on Spot.Us. If you haven’t browsed them in a while please take a moment to do so now. Let us know what you think of the new layout. We are literally approving four new pitches today. Are you going to be the first members of the public to see value and boost their chances for local coverage?

COMING SOON.
As you can see, there isn’t a shortage of things happening at Spot.Us. There will be more coming soon, including the results from our last community-focused sponsorship where we will present what the Spot.Us community thinks about objectivty in journalism. We also hope to sign up new sponsorships soon. Until then – we work for you!

We just got our issue of Quill Magazine and are tickled pink to see the write-up for our friends at NewsDesk.org for their award winning coverage “A Toxic Tour of the Bay.”

Our friend Amy Gahran chronicled how this project came to fruition. You can see the entire project at NewsDesk.org or Spot.Us.

From Quill:

The project incorporates text articles, video, audio and picture slide shows to show in stark detail that ship pollution from the port has health consequences for local residents. But as the presentation showed, local regulations are mostly ineffective against vessels governed by international maritime law.

…
More than just a multimedia journalism venture, the work of Komenich, Booth and Wilson is notable for its truly grassroots effort — from the appeal of the content to the way it was funded. By using Spot.Us, a Knight Foundation News Challenge project pioneering and enabling crowd-funded journalism, Newsdesk.org raised nearly $1,800 to cover the project’s expenses — including hiring freelancers Komenich and Booth.

Spot.Us is honored to play our part. But the real kudos goes to NewsDesk.org, Kwan Booth and Kim Komenich. Our hat is off!

Crowdfunding in the Spot.Us way includes many features that are radically new in journalism.

Pitching in public is one of them. In the traditional journalistic process journalists pitch to editors, not to readers.

According to my study, the Spot.Us reporters find pitching in public intriguing, yet challenging in many ways. One of the reporters describes his experience with pitching in public:

“I don’t like pitching in public. Yeah, hell, it is scary to pitch in public. I didn’t reveal everything in the pitch – I know more than I wrote in the pitch, and have learnt more too since the pitch was published.”

The reporters are concerned about exposing their story in public because there is a risk that a competitor might use their idea. Investigative reporters identify the risk that the publicity might affect their sources, and the actions of the people the reporters are investigating.

However, the reporters think experimenting with the new level of transparency and publicity is worth it.

“If this story was easy to cover, somebody would have done it already. You need to have the experience and resources to do this story. And if I don’t try crowdfunding now, when will I try it?”, one reporter says.

I have interviewed Spot.Us reporters and donors for my study about crowdfunding in journalism. The study is a part of my Ph.D. project, in which I’m studying collective intelligence in journalism. More about my findings on the PBS MediaShift, and a SlideShare presentation based on my paper here.

There has been plenty of coverage of the Mehserle trial in Los Angeles. Spot.Us, New American Media, Oakland Local, KALW, Mission Loc@l, The California Beat and others joined forces to try and provide independent coverage.

Some initial feedback that was given to Thandisizwe: “A BART attorney intorduced himself to me by asking how to pronounce my name.  He said he “reads your stuff everyday,” pointing to me and Ms. Manyak from the Beat/Campanil.  He said, “I read theirs too,” pointing at the guy from the Oakland Tribune, “but I read yours first, then I read theirs.”

Kevin Weston from New American Media points out that: “The Tweets are amazing and have broken at least three stories.” You can listen to an interview between Thandi and Kevin on Wednesday at KALW.

If you haven’t been following these tweets can be found: twitter.com/OscarGrantTrial

EARN Credits on Spot.Us answering 3 quick questions -  then fund a story!

Hello Spot.Us community members. We are very excited about sharing a new feature we are calling “community centered advertising.”

Check out Spot.Us’ new button “Earn Credits.” Simply log in, take a three question survey from our sponsor and earn $5 in credits which can support the reporting of your choice. (Go directly to the survey here.

By taking this quick survey you can generate real money to support the reporting topic of your choice. And you’ll help us re-think and re-invent advertising along the way! But this offer is only good while the sponsorship dollars last! And you can only take the survey once – so choose wisely!

If you’ve ever wanted to help Spot.Us out more but couldn’t bare reaching for your wallet – now is your chance to get involved!

How it works

1. Register or log in at Spot.Us.
2. Click the “Earn Credits” button in the header.
3. Take the painless survey. Just three questions. At the end of the third question it’s OPTIONAL to leave your email address for more information (100% OPTIONAL)
4. Click submit. Then browse pitches on Spot.Us. Click “Apply Credits,” confirm you want to apply your credits and bingo!
5. Feel good that you’ve helped support civic reporting.

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS!

Normally a news organization gets advertising dollars and the editor decides where the money goes. That’s not the case here at Spot.Us. We let the community decide. But we do have to thank our sponsors “Mortgage Revolution.” They are working to change the image of mortgage professionals – and that’s why they are giving you the chance to control your local media through Spot.Us. Mortgage Revolution has no say in where the money goes – it goes through you! So please join me in thanking Mortgage Revolution for the chance to experiment with “community centered advertising.” Let’s also wish them lots of luck in stirring a grassroots movement in the mortgage industry that upholds higher standards for transparency in lending and ethical business conduct. GO MORTGAGE REVOLUTION!

INTERESTED IN BEING A SPONSOR?

We are looking for more sponsors! Consider a survey for market research, brand or cause marketing or more (we have lots of ideas). In exchange – your sponsorship dollars will go directly to community members so they can fund the reporting of their choice (and they’ll love you for it).

Are you interested in being a sponsor? We have special deals for the first few organiations that commit. Contact: David@spot.us for more info.

Until next time.
David Cohn
Spot.Us

Makers Quest has a great article about Spot.Us that interviews some of our reporters.

Holly Kernan, News Director at KALW says, “We’ve had terrific experiences with Spot.Us and hope to use it more in the future. So far, we’ve mostly been experimenting with how best to use it. We promote it on air, but not too much, we send folks to the link on our site.”

Spot.Us offers media organizations a widget they can post on their websites to draw attention and click-throughs for donations.

Another KALW + Spot.Us success story was a two-part series on homelessness in California by Thea Chroman. “Return of the Hooverville: Car and Tent Cities on the Rise in San Francisco” was also produced for Roxbury News. Check out her powerful audio slideshow.

….

Gies says Spot.Us is a sign of hope for independent media, “As we all know, journalism is undergoing a tectonic shift right now. It’s a scary time with strapped budgets and few assignments, but it’s also exciting because there is a lot of entrepreneurial energy and creativity, and the future of news will likely arise from this experimentation…I hope Spot.us can remind readers of both the public service that journalism offers and that that service costs money and is worth paying for.”

In Los Angeles, freelance audio and video journalist Patrick Burke was able to raise $500 for his reporting on American Apparel’s firing of 1800 immigrant workers in Los Angeles.

Burke says, “Making Contact supplied $250, and with quick descriptions of the project and my credentials, plus two video teasers of my best interviews, I soon had several small contributions that provided the other half. David [Cohn] also worked with me on trying to place the video piece when the project was done. In the end, everyone was happy, except the former American Apparel workers.”

Still, Klein says it was a worthwhile experience. He offers this advice, “A spot.us reporter needs to be their own organizer and advocate to generate interest and financial support for their own work. It was not one of my strong suits. I plan to pitch a hyperlocal story next time, and then reach out to a group of people I have connections with in my community to help get it fully funded.”

Spot.Us isn’t the only option out there for freelancers and independents seeking to get work, assignments, distribution and money.  Here are a few others to consider, all which have different models and missions.

• Guru
• E-Byline
• Helium

ONWARD!

This morning thanks to media advisor Jennifer 8. Lee I had the opportunity to pick the brain of Eli Pariser of MoveOn.org.

The goal was for me to get unfuddled with Spot.Us’ emails. Who better than MoveOn.org to have as a guide in this space? They have used their email campaigns to change policy and activate a large community around political issues.

The main takeaway is that Spot.Us needs to be sending more emails. For the last six months or so – we’ve been sending only one a month and we are trying to catch everyone up on a month’s worth of news. Instead, Eli suggested, and I think rightfully so, that it is better to send frequent emails with specific updates.

I have been holding back and more and more – I’m getting feedback from folks that they want to get more updates from Spot.Us and that once a month isn’t enough. So consider this a public note to myself: Spot.Us will do a better job of sending emails out to our community and informing them about all the rad stuff we are doing.

It reminds me of what an old friend Amanda Michel once told me: “There is no such thing as too much email. Just too much unwanted email.”

Still – I’ve been holding back. But exciting things happen every day – every week, every moment. We need to share these moments with the larger Spot.Us community.

That said – I want to get feedback from you, the folks I want to communicate with. What are the kinds of updates you are most interested in? What are the kinds of updates you don’t want to hear about?

I already know our first quick update message which I hope to send out later today or tomorrow. It will be a good test for us.

Since Spot.Us first launched in late 2008 as a simple wiki, I’ve wanted this to be a learning and growing endeavor both for myself and for  journalism as a whole.

There are so many lessons in starting a non-profit news project, especially one that is unique in its scope and mission like Spot.Us. I hope to share some insight below, but first the news.

Today Spot.Us takes a huge step forward with a new design and new features. This was made possible by lead designer Lauren Rabaino and the excellent development team of Erik Sundelof and Dan Newman. Please join me and Anh Do, managing editor of the Los Angeles branch, in thanking this team.

The new interface will continue to be tweaked, but it is already much more appealing and user friendly than our old design. I dare not call it “Spot.Us 2.0″ just yet. There are two major new features planned before we hit that mark. This is Spot.Us 1.9.

New Features

Suggest a city: It’s time to start looking beyond the Bay Area and Los Angeles. That’s right — expansion is a priority. Spot.Us is a tool or platform, not a news organization. With that in mind, we are looking to expand where we know people are interested in using the site. Would you intend on using it if it was available in your area? If so, suggest your city!

Assignments: This is a feature I am very excited about. In some respects it transitions Spot.Us out of “community funded reporting” and into “community powered reporting.” It’s a subtle but important distinction. Every reporter now has the option of creating “assignments” that are limited only by their imagination. A reporter could crowdsource a collection of photos, distribute the workload required for reviewing documents, etc. The reporter has control over who can and cannot contribute to an assignment, and how assignments exist, if at all, in relation to their pitch. This is an optional feature for anyone that wants to build a movement around their reporting efforts.

Widgets, Facebook, Twitter, Oh My!: Yes, it’s been a long time coming. I admit we haven’t been moving fast enough in this space. But we are making up for it ASAP! We aren’t breaking ground here, but considering that we are playing in the new media space, it’s a crime that we haven’t had these features.

More on Widgets: This is a deceptively forward-looking feature. Our hope is that soon people will be able to donate through a widget without ever having to leave the site where the widget is placed. This could also pave the way for an API (which is much further out, but is along this train of thought). For now, widgets will be built into a “Spot.Us Lite” that can be hosted on your website by just copying and pasting some code. (This is coming soon.)

Story updates: We’ve had blog posts associated with every pitch, but the vast majority of blog posts have been overlooked. Now we are highlighting the latest story updates on the front page, and will encourage reporters to show the process of their reporting.

RSS: We now have an RSS feed for…everything: Latest stories, newest pitches, blog posts, even the most recent contributions — and they can all be filtered by networks. Only interested in Los Angeles news? Go into the LA network and all the RSS feeds will be relevant to you.

Spot.Us Channels: The first channel we’re creating is “Spot Us Picks.” But in the future, channels, or filtered menus of pitches, can be created around topics (the health channel) general types of organizations (the public media channel) or specific partnering organizations (The Bay Area News Project channel).

There are also a few more minor features and tweaks. For example, we are finally able to better highlight our successful partnerships, our community advisory boards, and more.

General Lessons, Observations

I’ve learned more during this process than I can truly reflect on in a single blog post. But I have always seen winning the Knight News Challenge as a great privilege that has afforded me the luxury (and responsibility) to publicly expound on how Spot.Us is going, and what I’m learning along the way.

Many of those lessons are in past blog posts around being iterative, the things you must weigh in website development and collaboration. As of right now, these are some of the best lessons I’ve been able to articulate. I hope to share more as I continue.

How Is Spot.Us Doing?

I never know how to answer this question. No matter how many times I say it won’t, some people still expect Spot.Us and crowdfunding to somehow replace the gobs of money that has been lost from traditional advertising.

Here’s what I usually say: “Considering all the things that could have gone wrong, we are doing amazing!”

And that is true.

Now in our second year of an initial grant from the Knight Foundation, I am proud to say that with micro-donations and other foundation grants, we have almost raised a third of the amount of money given to us in that first grant. Which is to say: In another two years, we could be a net positive to the cash flow of working journalists. That, of course, assumes nothing changes.

This design represents a shift from the proof-of-concept stage to the expansion stage. Indeed, I’m talking to (and want to talk to more) folks around the country who want to use Spot.Us in their area. My hope is we can continue to funnel more money into the pockets of journalists who are reporting on important civic topics.

However, if people expect Spot.Us to replace major metro papers, then we are in trouble. As I often say, there is no such thing as a silver bullet. Spot.Us is a new, growing revenue stream. It is not meant to be as big of a revenue stream as classifieds were 20 years ago; but it is a revenue stream that requires little effort (just create a pitch and embed a widget), and an option that can be combined with a multitude of other streams

We continue to be a platform — a growing platform. This year is a make or break moment. At the end of 2010, Spot.Us could be a beautiful failure in that we can report back to the larger journalism community what we know, what we learned and how we think others could build off that. Or we will keep going — the little startup non-profit that could

I’ve always been an underdog, a nice guy that didn’t buckle to authority. With that in mind, I have every intention of breaking through every barrier I see in front of Spot.Us. I hope you’ll join me!