A while ago Chris outlined what he termed the Jon Stewart Model, which is fair enough as it was actually Stewart‘s idea. The model is based on the current cable or radio model from the states on where the creators of content, like newspapers, license their content to aggregator sites such as as the Huffington Post who raise funds from advertising. A rather neat solution it seems, we retain a credible press with a new revenue income and people can continue to get access to free content via the aggregators. However it now seems that the aggregators themselves want to become the creators with yesterday’s announcement of the Huffington Post Investigative Fund.
Funded by the HuffPo itself and The Atlantic Philanthropies, the HuffFund has an initial pot $1.75 million is already accepting submission from freelancers, it also intends to employ a pool of staff reporters and will be producing a range of journalism, from…
‘…long-form investigations to short breaking news stories and will be presented in a variety of media, including text, audio and video. And, in the open source spirit of the Web, all of the content the Fund produces will be free for anyone to publish.’
It’s an interesting venture for several reasons, blogs of all sizes and forms, while having been touted as the killers of the industrial press, have fairly been criticised as our only hope as they don’t have the resources to conduct wide ranging investigative acts of journalism. This is no longer the case it seems and if they continue to be a more attractive advertising option than printed publication, and the HuffFund, if successful, could potentially mark the beginning of the end for newspapers
blogging, blogs, content, Huffington Post, newspapers
Might this turn out to be nothing more than a honeypot for conspiracy theorists and partisans?
Could be the new 5th power (to the people???) via this new hibrid ·blogpaper·
The conspiracy theorist theory – is framed by a devil’s advocate surely. Let’s consider that the fund is administrated by intelligent, sceptical and savvy people. The result will simply be an opportunity for good investigative journalism in a world where that particular commodity (relatively free of commercial/editorial constraints) is increasingly scarce.
- CHS disgused as Jim
I am sure that the Fund is already being innudated with pitches based on conspiracy theories, but hopefully as CHS AKA Jim says, the ppl in charge will ignore them.
That said I’m not sure if any journalism can ever be free of commercial or editorial constraints – someone somewhere along the line will have some form of agenda. Or am I just being overly cynical, again?