The idea of crowd sourcing to produce journalism

In 2006, when Robert Greenwald was in need of funding for his film “Iraq for Sale,” his co-founder of Brave New Film’s, Jim Gilliam thought why not asks the audience. William Booth describes this fundraising process in his article, “His Fans Greenlight the Project: Robert GreenwaldTapped a New Funding Source: The Audience.” They were unsure as to how successful this method would be however, once Gilliam sent a mass email to about 4,000 people they have raised the needed funds within 10 days.

This was one of the first examples of filmmakers or journalists of any kind reaching out to their audience and asking for funds. Now, eight years later it is common among independent news outlets to receive donations from their audience.

Booth quotes Gilliam saying, that this method of funding is the future for independent products. Gilliam continues to say that with these donations from supporters, the film or journalistic product produced will be “out of the control of corporations” and therefore it can truly be a form of independent media.  However, in order for this to be a success there must be a large enough audience willing to support the journalist. In the instance of Greenwald's film it helped that he had produced groundbreaking films prior to “Iraq for Sale.” Building a well-established audience can be crucial to receiving the necessary funds for production. Since Gilliam’s call to action, many other independent media outlets have been taking advantage of crowd sourcing.

The Internet has been critical for the success of some independent media outlets. With the Internet these outlets have been able to share their work more easily and gain audience members. Nonprofit media outlets have been able to grow based off of outside donations. The audience members choosing to donate to a certain independent outlet clearly feel strongly about what content is being produced. Some of these donation-based publications cannot survive without numerous donations from audience members. However, these publications differ from Gilliam’s method of crowd sourcing because their donors are supporting the outlet as a whole not a specific project. Gilliam was upfront with donors about what Iraq for Sale was and what Greenwald needed funding for.

While this type of crowd sourcing may have been rare in the past an initiative called “Beacon” is giving journalists an opportunity to receive audience funding. Beacon is an online platform where journalists can share the details of what their project is and ask for funds to produce it. Beacon has given journalists the chance to report on something they are passionate about. The only thing needed from the journalist is to spark the public’s interest in a subject and then produce the desired story.