Crowdsourcing, Crowdfunding, and Community Funded Reporting

A few days ago, The New York Times published a story on a new online approach to selecting and funding investigative journalism pieces.  A nonprofit called Spot Us calls it “community funded reporting.”  The concept is really quite simple.  It has two main components: 1) ask people for story ideas, and 2) ask them to provide funds to defray the costs of producing the story.  In cyberspeak, the two components are called “crowdsourcing” and “crowdfunding”, respectively.

As is the case with most new versions of things, this approach could lead to good or bad outcomes (or both), depending on the ways in which we choose to consider the trade-offs.  On the positive side, it has the potential to democratize editorial processes, sharing with the public some level of editorial responsibility.  Giving the public the capacity to nominate investigative stories and the power to vote with their wallets provides a mechanism to demand accountability not just from political leaders, but the journalism profession as well.

On the other hand, the whole scheme tends to commodify what many believe should be public goods: accessible, accurate, reliable, fearless, and fact-based investigative reporting that can help citizens participate more meaningfully in public life.  In the words of Sarah Kershaw, who wrote The Times article, “… the experiment has also raised concerns of journalism being bought by the highest bidder.”  I agree. As a matter of principle and practice, the public good must be protected from selfish interests.

Obviously, “crowds” in crowdsourcing and crowdfunding aren’t likely to be the typical unruly and uninformed bunch evoked by the word.  They are far more likely to be virtual interest publics, organized through new ICTs, caring about issues of consequence, such as environmental policy, child safety, and government malfeasance. As virtual interest publics, these “crowds” are deliberative players in the public sphere, and should be able to demand accountability from public institutions.  But publics are never perfect; they can also be corrupt.

Photo Credit: Flickr user Jasoon