Each week, dozens of journalistic endeavors turn to Kickstarter for funding. Pitching media projects to this online community brings another meaning to the concept “public interest journalism”; success depends on how intrigued people are by the pitch. From the hugely popular to the barely noticed, CJR’s Kickstarter Chronicles is a weekly look through some of these journalistic proposals.
Project of the week:
The Bushwick News, a hyperlocal news website also known as BushwickBK, stopped publishing this past October due to money troubles. Its editors are hoping that a Kickstarter campaign could help reboot the site. The founder, Jeremy Sapienza, said in the early years they made ends meet through ads and revenue from event hosting—but costs eventually exceeded earnings, and Sapienza decided to end it. He was soon getting e-mails, comments, and posts to The Bushwick News’s Facebook page, pleading with the site to “please start again,” says Sapienza. “People suggested we take the cause onto Kickstarter.”
BushwickBK is one of the few hyperlocal news sites currently attempting to raise money via Kickstarter. The site is collaborating with local businesses, who have hosted some fundraising events. Supporters of The Bushwick News’s Kickstarter get to choose from deals at community vendors as a token for their contribution.
Sapienza says he and a small group of reporters “bellyached a lot over the amount” of money to ask for. They wanted to raise enough to not have to worry for a few months, so they settled on a pledged goal of $40,000, and are a quarter of the way there with over a month left. If the site makes its goal, Sapienza says that asking readers for contributions will become part of its revenue model, especially since the majority of people contributing to the campaign are local residents of Bushwick. “We hope the neighborhood can afford our work,” says Sapienza. (Deadline: Thursday April 12, 10:38 pm)
New this week:
Greg Palast, an independent investigative journalist who often works for the BBC and The Observer, launched a Kickstarter project on Sunday. He’s asking for $15,000, which will go to finishing a film, four years in the works, tentatively titled The Election Games: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. The money will also go to fund further investigations for a book on “the billionaires buying the election,” slated for the summer of 2012. Palast has covered voter disenfranchisement issues before, both for the BBC and Rolling Stone. (Deadline: Thursday May 3, 2:13 am)
Also new to Kickstarter this week is Cannabis Planet, a film “about the merits of the Cannabis Sativa plant as a Food, Fuel, Fiber & Medicine.” (Deadline: Friday April 6, 1:20 pm) A documentary about American music festival culture debuted around the same time, but some festival goers were less than enthusiastic about the idea of being filmed, taking their frustrations to a message board on JamBase—a site that covers the bands that play at many of these festivals. Some festival campers even promised physical violence to anyone with a camera near their tents. (Deadline: Thursday April 5, 2:49 pm)
Overachievers:
Science and technology-focused Matter, a platform for investigative long form stories, reached its $50,000 goal in just 38 hours. In nine days it passed the $100,000 mark, and soon after that passed another publishing milestone when Matter’s Kickstarter comment section experienced its first troll. (Deadline: Saturday March 24, 3 am)
In other science publishing news, adults around the country are apparently clamoring for an explanatory children’s book about sex: What Makes a Baby has already exceeded its funding goal six times over, raising over $50,000 after initially asking for $9,500. Watch the video to see kids being cute while answering the question: “What makes a baby?” (Deadline: Friday March 16, 9:22 am)
Longshot:
Wikipedia vandals are the focus of the documentary project “The Encyclopedia Game,” and while I am intrigued to know why people edit Wikipedia entries to be wrong, I have my doubts about the depth of the pitch, and its very ambitious $60,000 goal. (Deadline: April 5, 11:59 pm)
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Good luck to the Bushwickians but ... if local businesses are offering perks to donors, why don't enough of them just advertise to keep the site in business? For all the angst over alternate revenue streams, we and the other profitable neighborhood-news sites around the country still find that advertising is it. Never mind the misguided out-of-touch doomsayers who say advertising is dead or dying. There is NO better way for local businesses to reach local people than a well-read local news site.
#1 Posted by Tracy @ WSB, CJR on Tue 13 Mar 2012 at 11:56 AM
In regards to our documentary and the discussions that have occurred as a result we would like to point out that it is not at all our intention to film festival attendees. While we will film at festivals and attendees may be found on camera, we will not be filming any attendees specifically unless they agree prior to filming. We hope to show the side of this culture that is not well known, the business aspects that go into the production of festivals, the set-up and strik of the grounds before and after a festival. The people behind the scenes who slave all year to book musicians, and ensure vendors will be available so their attendees can have a carefree weekend. While we empathize with attendees fear of filming at these events we can assure them that there will be no "getting in your face". We will be filming from a distance and more so behind the scenes than anything else. Our goal is to showcase that the festival community is a optimistic culture with much to offer America in her time of need, not to show people dancing and taking drugs, those are the myths we want to dispel.
Great article by the way, Kickstarter is a wonderful community deserving of the praise they receive.
#2 Posted by UnPlanned Events, CJR on Wed 14 Mar 2012 at 12:56 PM