The New New Media
There’s been a lot of navel-gazing talk about where blogging is headed, but Matt Welch has hit on an interesting idea that could encourage a whole niche of new media.

Matt proposes Targeted Blogger Fundraising, which would allow readers to pay a blogger (via an Amazon or Pay Pal tip jar) to write about a specific topic, presumably involving some amount of reporting.

I really think the idea has legs.

So right up front, I should say my little noggin has been distilling this idea with heavy doses of not only Matt but Henry Copeland, Nick Denton and even Glenn Reynolds. I also bounced the idea off my husband, he of a Big Media day job. So I’m not claiming any of this as my own, but definitely want to give the idea a push.

For background, I make the following assumptions:

1. Big media is good when it spends money on good journalism; it’s bad when it buys up its competitors and homogenizes alternative voices.
2. The economy is bad, therefore fewer news outlets are paying for good journalism.
3. Many good writers are spending untold hours groveling to pitch stories to editors.
4. Web traffic is high at news sites and some blogs.
5. The honor system has been somewhat successful in the implementation of shareware and blogger tip jars.

How many times have you talked back to your newspaper or TV newscaster, asking why they don’t do a story on A, B or C? Or why don’t they ask X, Y or Z before ending the interview? What if you could commission your own stories and get your questions answered? You don’t have to be Rupert Murdoch or Bill Gates to have your own private think tank or newsroom, you could go to the web and hire your own journalist.

Now say you are Ken Layne and work as a freelance reporter. Or you’re music reporter Kate Sullivan and your publication was just shuttered. Or you’re Jane Galt, an MBA oddly working in a trailer at Ground Zero who’s written a couple stories for Salon because they liked your blog. You go about your day job and you go about your blogging. But in addition, you put up a box on your blog that says I’m interested in writing a story on the following three topics: violations at privately run prisons; whether NYC’s water supply is protected from terrorism; scuba diving in Cuba. You tell your readers that it would be worth your while to do a story once your tip jar reaches $350 for the topic. The money is returned to your donors via the tip jar within 30 days if you don’t produce, and you only take the money once you’ve posted – or whatever arrangement you decide to set for your donors. Every blogger sets up his own Wild West rules. Or a handful of bloggers/reporters come together under an umbrella not unlike BlogCritics, but with a model where readers can commission stories. How about having a couple reporters do the story together? What about art to go with it? Will people pay? Is it worth a try?

The idea sounds unconventional, but really it’s not. You pay $10 to go see a movie that may or may not entertain you. You pay 50 cents to buy a paper that may deliver the world, while another one you buy for 25 cents merely because you find the gossip entertaining. And you spend $12 on a novel for its brilliant writing that wanes by page 60. In all those buyer relationships, you had some reason to believe the movie or novel would amuse you, the paper would deliver some truth or new viewpoint. So who’s to say that the bloggers you read everyday aren’t deserving of the trust they’ve built up with you? When you go to Jane Galt, Tony Pierce or Ken Layne, you know precisely what voice you will hear. There is a point of view, and when they talk about facts, you have learned over time exactly how much you can trust them. If you don’t like them, don’t buy what they’re selling. If you like them, buy. If you want them to look into a different topic, drop an e-mail or use the comments section on their blog. Interact.

So what’s the benefit? You give bloggers a reason to churn out better material. Readers get their questions answered and can shape what becomes news. Bloggers can turn around and resell their blog story to a non-blog publication and you can be sure that some of the best ideas will find its way into the mainstream. All in all it makes for a better democracy, and that’s really what we all want anyway, right? Well, democracy, a bacon double cheeseburger and a good beer.
- posted by Amy @ 10/17/2002 02:00:00 AM