Pay-to-read journalism

We've written before about the trend of independent journalists raising money online to fund their reporting (see "Experiment in Independent Journalism"), such as Christopher Allbritton, whose trip to Iraq was funded by 320 people who donated $14,334 through his Web site, Back-to-Iraq.com. Now BusinessWeek's Spencer E. Ante dubs this "pay-to-read journalism" and wonders if this is the future of journalism. "Reporters, individually or in groups, could use the Net to raise money directly from readers interested in specific stories or journalistic styles. That could be independent journalism, in the spirit of the old Village Voice, or withering cultural criticism, a la The Baffler. Instead of aiming for the mass market, journalists have a way to target an audience of thousands, more easily pursuing stories that lie off the beaten path." This is likely not the future of journalism -- but you can bet you'll see this occur more often.

Jul 22, 2003 | E-MAIL | SAVE | PRINT | PERMALINK | DISCUSS(0)

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