I'm delighted that today we are launching a new venture -- The Huffington Post Investigative Fund. This nonprofit Fund will produce a wide-range of investigative journalism created by both staff reporters and freelance writers.
As the newspaper industry continues to contract, one of the most commonly voiced fears is that serious investigative journalism will be among the victims of the scaleback. And, indeed, many newspapers are drastically reducing their investigative teams. Yet, given the multiple crises we are living through, investigative journalism is all the more important. As a result, all who recognize the indispensable role good journalism plays in our democracy are looking for ways to preserve it during this transitional period for the media. For too long, whether it's coverage of the war in Iraq or the economic meltdown, we've had too many autopsies and not enough biopsies. The HuffFund is our attempt to change this. It will also provide new opportunities for seasoned journalists who have been laid off or forced into early retirement.
The pieces developed by the Fund will range 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.
Picture a large pool of reporters -- some on staff, and many freelancers -- proposing stories and also receiving assignments from Investigative Fund editors.
This investigative initiative is being funded by The Huffington Post and The Atlantic Philanthropies, and will be headed by Nick Penniman, founder of The American News Project, which will be folded into the Fund. Nick and I first worked together back in 2000 when we organized the Shadow Conventions to address issues -- poverty, the failed drug war, and money in politics - that neither political party was focusing on. We've stayed in touch ever since, and I am really looking forward to working with him on producing journalism with real impact.
We'll start with a budget of $1.75 million -- and continue to raise funds and expand the project as we move forward.
We are delighted that we will be working on this venture with a number of partners, including the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and NYU's Jay Rosen. This is our second collaboration with Jay, after teaming up to launch OffTheBus, which produced great citizen-powered coverage of the 2008 campaign.
The Fund is ready to interview potential editors and reporters and also to start receiving proposals for investigative projects. The focus at the beginning is going to be on investigating aspects of the economic crisis. So please email resumes and pitches -- as well any ideas and tips you may have about what should be investigated -- to HuffPostFund@gmail.com.
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I'm online, but prefer hard copy that I can read over coffee, while relaxing. I can think about what I'm reading, make notes in the margin to ask about, or to read up on. Online is nice, but its not all there is.
Thank you.
Neverthele
What are the benefits? Web users supporting the generation of news directly, not unlike the coins they pay at a news stand for a daily paper. Except here the reader is paying for either all of the content or a substantia
A balance will be found. The illusion that content is always free will be broken — the illusion on commercial
These concepts deserve a serious hearing and likewise a public response.
Morley Chalmers
I envision a universal or nearly universal system almost from the beginning. Although there may be no rule mandating a monopoly system, to be successful any micropayme
Because the fee-per-cl
The obvious problem is prevention of gaming the system. To make such a system functional all players (the end user, the website providing the links and the micropayme
(Next post…)
Saw your heavily edited (probably for time) interview with Charlie Rose on funding news links and the heavy lifting of journalism — 8April2009
Thomas Curley, ceo of Associated Press dismissed micropayme
So, I'll answer my own question — what about micropayme
The model I see as having potential is really a variation on PayPal. The end user subscribes to a service which supports the transfer of a micropayme
(Continued in next post.)
Have you spoken to any members of Congress about how dishonest the Giethner PPIP is? Every morning I read something indicating it is worse than I thought., but Congress doesn't seem to care. If you have spoken to any Congressme
As an aside, please see the following link regarding the similarite
http://ror
In my opinion one of the best modern Investigat
In any democracy it is essential that the government is held to account. Given the depths of secrecy involved (particula
Please go forth with vigour and integrity.
They make it look like the Dem. party doesn't know what they're doing, when in fact, the attack happened on the watch of that last guy, who hasn't gotten the respect to even have his name called.
This is a joke, and for anyone to say that we won the so-called "Error on Terror" should re-examine the facts, and come to the conclusion that Sadam Hussein had little, if nothing to do with 9/11, and Bin Laden did, so why are we not utilizing our resources to try and find him?
With most people on the outside looking in, it's become obvious that the personal invitation
Arianna, you go girl !.