We posted the following note on the NewsWrights United Facebook page this morning, as we gear up our full-bore effort to cover the current crisis in journalism from a Pacific Northwest perspective.
Help NewsWrights “Crowd Source” its Investigation into How Northwest On-Line Newsies Monetize
As Newswrights United continues its investigation into the current crisis of journalism for our upcoming second edition of A Living Newspaper: The New New News, it has become clear to us that monetization is possibly the most crucial issue facing the imperiled Fourth Estate. How will these nascent on-line information sources sustain themselves financially? Will the reporters gathering the news be able to make a living or will they, like, say theatre artists, be forced to cobble together their livelihoods through means both related and unrelated to their chosen vocation of truth telling? Will funders, advertisers, subscribers and other potential sources of revenue respect the traditional “fire-wall” between financial and editorial?
Our Editing Producer Tom Paulson shrewdly notes that the “monetization question” is one most journalists are unwilling to ask, since they would rather not to have to answer it themselves. We at NewsWrights believe a significant public service could be performed simply by accurately reporting how Seattle’s online news providers fund their operations and how they plan to in the future. After all, since we are only playacting as journalists, we should have nothing to lose, right?
So if you know anything, or know anyone that might know anything, about how the sites on the following list are monetizing, please let us know.
CrossCut
InvestigateWest
MyBallard.com (along with its other neighborhood affiliates: MyQueenAnne, etc.)
PI.com
Publicola
Seattle Times on line
Seattlecrime.com
Seattlepostglobe.org
The Stranger on line (SLOG)
Sunbreak.com
Weekly online
West Seattle Blog
(Please feel free to suggest additions to this list.)
You can go to the NewsWrights United Facebook page by clicking here.
If you have not already done so, I strongly encourage you to “like” us on Facebook. We will not be spamming you, but rather encouraging you to chime in as we build our theatrical coverage of The New New News, ultimately culminating in a production of a second edition of A Living Newspaper in Seattle early next year.
Comments