By
Jessica Weiss
A new crowdfunding site wants to help
journalists and nonprofits seek funding for hard-hitting investigative
reporting.
Uncoverage, which plans to
launch in early 2014, wants to “democratize patronage for investigative
journalism.” The startup will allow site visitors to make a secure donation to
journalists for coverage of specific topics or stories. Pledges can be for
one-time donations or for a recurring donation that functions like a
subscription.
The new initiative is being led by Israel Mirsky, a New York City-based technologist with a
background in computer science, production and analytics for marketing and a
passion for news. He's joined by a diverse founding team of people in the
technology, business and media fields.
Uncoverage has recruited a small group
of founding journalists from around the world to begin testing the technology.
But before it starts helping projects find funding, Uncoverage is itself raising money on the Crowdfunding site indiegogo
to finance its alpha launch.
Once the Uncoverage platform launches,
vetted journalists will be able to post their news pitches to request funding
for the budget needed to deliver a completed story. Fact-checkers will verify
information in the pitches, and topic editors will help craft pitches and
stories to help sell the final product to news outlets. The for-profit site
will take a 5 to 7 percent commission on every transaction.
Journalists will keep the copyright to
their work, and Uncoverage plans to help them syndicate their stories to major
national media publications. Because Uncoverage believes that “stories produced
in the public interest should be available to everyone,” all stories published
on the site will be free, and the site will not have a paywall.
Uncoverage recently announced a
partnership with nonprofit investigative news organization the Center
for Public Integrity. The Center for Public Integrity’s mission is
to “serve democracy by revealing abuses of power, corruption and betrayal of
public trust by powerful public and private institutions, using the tools of
investigative journalism.”
Jessica Weiss, a former IJNet managing
editor, is a Buenos Aires-based freelancer.
Image courtesy of Flickr user epSos.de under a Creative Commons license.
Source: http://ijnet.org
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