New York Times story puts Spot.Us in the spotlight
The New York Times is partnering with Knight grantees recognized as innovators in developing new economic models for journalism.
In Sunday’s Public Editor Column, Clark Hoyt said The Times is working with Spot.Us to pay for Lindsey Hoshaw’s proposed report on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
The NYT mention has gotten Lindsey, Spot.Us, and crowdfunded journalism attention from all over the web, including the Huffington Post, Poynter Online’s NewsPay blog, and Econsultancy’s blog. The percentage of visitors to the site who became donors increased to 10 percent from 1 percent. New contributors to the Garbage Patch pitch include Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, Craig Newmark of Craigslist, and Knight Foundation President and CEO Alberto Ibargüen.
Hoyt also said The Times works with ProPublica on some investigative stories, and that editors and executives at the paper were in discussions about seeking out foundations to underwrite news sections or categories like the Science Times.
For more on new economic models, check out the City University of New York’s New Business Models for News Project.
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:47 am
Might want to change "Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales" to more accurately read "Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales". Don't perpetuate Wales' deliberate revisionist history.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:05 am
Thanks for the catch, Gregory. I had originally written "founder" instead of "co-founder" to reflect what Dave Cohn had written on his blog, but after looking up Wales' own Wikipedia page, I see that he self-identifies as co-founder, so I'll make the change. And I have to respectfully defend Wikipedia; while I would not necessarily use and cite it in a research paper, I do not think that it takes liberties with history more than any other secondary source, and I find that it is a great place to look for general information about any topic.
July 28th, 2009 at 4:47 am
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July 31st, 2009 at 5:58 pm
[...] New York Times story puts Spot.Us in the spotlight on the Knight Foundation Blog [...]
August 12th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Claire, Claire, Claire. Jimmy Wales decidedly does NOT self-identify (any more) as "co-founder". He used to introduce himself as "co-founder", but then he decided that he could make more money on speaking gigs if he were the "founder", or even more ridiculously, the "sole founder". It's really an interesting, dramatic story of deceit. Read all about it:
http://blog.citizendium.org/2009/04/08/an-open-letter-to-jimmy-wales-copy/