Spot.Us journalism project opens shop in Seattle
Spot.Us has expanded its innovative online journalism model to Seattle, the third major city for the nonprofit project.
Spot.Us uses “community powered reporting” in which people directly fund news stories proposed by independent journalists. It has been operating in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Spot.Us founder Dave Cohn said moving into Seattle is the first phase of a larger expansion. Spot.us is looking at Austin and Minneapolis next.
“We have been hinting at Seattle as the next Spot.Us city for some time and I’m very excited today, with the click of a few buttons, to make it a reality,” Cohn wrote in a blog post explaining the news.
Cohn explains why Seattle: Spot.Us Expands to Seattle
On Spot.Us, reporters post stories they hope to have funded outlining the project and explaining how much it will cost to do. Readers, publishers and members of the community pledge money toward the total cost.
On the first day of Spot.Us Seattle, the site had three story proposals: one about homelessness, one on the environmental impact of cruise ships and a third a series on the Port of Seattle including security issues.
Launched in November of 2008, Spot.Us has raised close to $100,000 for civic journalism from small donations averaging around $65 each, funding over 60 Bay Area and Los Angeles reporting projects.
The Spot.Us story with the highest profile to date was a piece that ran in the New York Times in November 2009: Dissecting the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
For that story, $6,000 was raised by 109 people.
