Pro Publica, MinnPost Burst Out of the Box

Published: October 17, 2007, 11:34 pm

Tags: community citizen user gen participatory conversational content, daily newspaper companies, innovation, city pages, crosscut, family foundations, joel kramer, martin brown foundation, minnpost, paul steiger, pegasus news, pioneer press, pro publica, star tribune, the p

If you look through the growing haze of daily downsizing, you can see a sun trying to rise. While no single model of new journalism funding has yet emerged whole and succcesful, we can see common elements in experiments ranging from the just-announced Pro Publica to the soon-to-launch MinnPost to the newer national politics site, The Politico, and the other locally oriented start-ups like the Northwest's Crosscut, Dallas' Pegasus News and Voice of San Diego. Most important is the passion. Behind each is a set of people who believe that there are sizable groups of readers hungry for good, independent journalism. That conviction then leads them to assemble -- one way or the other, to start -- experienced journalists, turned out or turned off by the spirit-sapping downsizing now endemic to the trade. It's the in-between -- how to pay those want-to-be optimistic journalists to serve those want-to-know readers -- that's being worked through. The forms vary from foundation grants to

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