connect Community Funded Reporting
Spot.Us is a nonprofit project of the "Center for Media Change" and funded by various groups like the Knight Foundation. We partner with various organizations including the Annenberg School of Communications in Los Angeles.
We are an open source project to pioneer “community powered reporting.” Through Spot.Us the public can commission and participate with journalists to do reporting on important and perhaps overlooked topics. Contributions are tax deductible and we partner with news organizations to distribute content under appropriate licenses. On some occasions we can even pay back the original contributors.
We practice the TAO of Journalism - Transparency, Accountability, and Openness
You can learn more about us at our press page. Or check out our suceess story and partners page.
Spot.Us - Community Funded Reporting Intro from Digidave on Vimeo.
We are incredibly passionate and do our best to answer every email. Don't hesitate to contact us: Email Us
Before you send us an email - check our FAQ's below. Perhaps your question has already been answered.
Spot.Us was founded by David Cohn and made possible by a generous grant from the Knight Foundation. Spot.Us has also drawn on support from individual funders like yourself, a fantastic team of advisors, designers and developers from Hashrocket to our current staff. We are proudly hosted by Engineyard. We are an open source project and you can contribute on Git Hub.
Anyone can "suggest a story" about an important topic you think should be reported on. This is often related to the question "what are you passionate about?" You can pledge to this tip, but no money is taken - it’s just a way to show how much interest you have in this possibly becoming a pitch. Suggesting a story could be the spark that starts an investigation. To suggest a story just create an account and click "Suggest a Story."
Finished content is published on Spot.Us unless we are working with a partnering organization. Spot.Us works with local news organizations to get content distributed in as many places as possible. See our growing list of media partners. Our partner news organizations can also obtain temporary copyright to the content (first publishing rights) if they donate 50% or more towards a pitch. Extra proceeds go back to community members who originally supported that pitch. We always ensure that the content will be made available online.
Spot.Us believes that some projects benefit through collaboration. If a reporter wants, they can create "Assignments" and invite the public to help them out. Some assignments lend themselves to lots of help, others just need one or two people. You can view and apply for all assignments under the "assignment" tab of a pitch. When you apply for an assignment a message is sent to the reporter that you are intersted in helping out with the reporting. If the reporter approves you taking on the assignment, you'll be notified via email and receive access to the pitch's "story updates" so you can show the reporter and the world what you have dug up. Not all stories benefit through collaboration, so joining the reporting team is done on a case by case basis by the reporter who is in charge of the pitch.
All credits are returned to your account and you can direct them towards any other existing pitch. You will have until the end of the fiscal year to put the money back in circulation through the Spot.Us system.
In the future we hope to build out a more dynamic credit system such that credit cards are only charged if the specific pitch you want has reached its funding goal.
Reporters on Spot.Us are self-identified freelance journalists. We do speak with every reporter about their pitch and verify their identity. As a marketplace we will continue to build tools to enable you to find out more about these reporters and judge them on the merits of their work. But it is important to note that Spot.Us does not try to define who is and is not a "journalist." What we say is that "we are choosy but not exclusive." We have worked with a two time Pulitzer Prize winning reporter. We've also worked with two high school students. The students had to convince us they were up to the challenge and were transparent about their lack of experience. Any self-identified freelancer can work with us and if they are earnest, we will reciprocate. We do require transparency about a reporters experience. We encourage every citizen to view the reporters profile and pitch critically before you donate.
As a marketplace Spot.Us is continually updating its reporter agreement. We have built this guidline as a means to explain how much a reporter can reasonable ask for during an investigation. It is based on competitive rates throughout the country for freelancers.
Privacy is very important to us. We will never share your information with a third party without your EXPRESS permission. No if’s and’s or but’s. To learn more, please check our Privacy Policy.
We've created a pricing guidline based on competitive rates for freelancers. This also includes the "reporters agreement" that explains the working relationship between Spot.Us and the reporter. The most important thing to know is that we are flexible. We work for you, so if you have special requests, speak up!
Write the pitch so that anyone who reads it will want to see that story materialize. Sell your idea and your expertise on the subject. Don’t be afraid to be personal. Upload a YouTube or Vimeo video explaining who you are and why you’re the right person for the job. Imagine what civic leaders or organizations would want to partner with you. Remember - the public now has a freelance budget, pitch them like you would the editor of a major metropolitan newspaper. Read More.
The Peer-Review editor has three main responsibilities – to ensure fair and accurate reporting, to be a second pair of eyes before a story is published as a sounding board for the reporter. To do the latter the Peer-Review editor should be in touch with the journalist regularly. At any time the Peer-Review editor can report suspicious activities to Spot.Us. If Spot.Us is partnering with an existing news organization then they provide editorial oversight. Otherwise Peer-Review editors are assigned by spot.Us, and the reporter can reject the first two assigned editors. The investigation will not publish without the Peer-Review editor's approval. Any journalist can apply to be a Peer-Review editor by applying for that "Assignment."
After creating a pitch, a reporter can create an "Assignmnet." These are not required, but at Spot.Us we believe that the public can help power reporting in a few ways. One ways is by donating funds. Another is when the public donates time. The more specific your assignments are, the more likely you will get positive results. You can create an assignment to get photography. You can create an assignment to have people look over documents. You can even create an assignment to have people conduct interviews. When people apply for an assignment you'll be notified and it's up to you if they are assigned or not. If assigned, they'll have access to your pitch's blog and can turn in their assignments through "story updates." This feature is entirely under your control.
There is no set flow chart for what happens to the finished content. It might be published on Spot.Us' site. If we are working with a partner organization, they might publish it as well. A reporter is always notified about potential partnerships and it's ther decision to move forward with them or not. The reporter is always given attribution for their work. It is not allowed to be altered without the author's express permission. If there are no partnering organizations, the content is made free to be republished through a Creative Commons license.
Next time an editor rejects your piece purely for monetary reasons, suggest raising half of your freelance salary on Spot.Us. Spot.Us is happy if you upload pitches to our site and try to shop them around to news organizations at the same time under the condition that interested news organizations work with the Spot.Us community.
In the future we will have a more dynamic credit card system that will only charge a users credit cards upon the succesful acceptance of a pitch.
News organizations have a special role in Spot.Us. They are the only type of user that is allowed to donate MORE than 20% of a pitch's goal. As such, we filter news organizations to ensure they ascribe to journalistic ethics as described by the Society of Professional Journalists. We realize that a waiting period before you become a "news organization" on Spot.Us is less than ideal, but it is important to us that these ethics are followed by anybody that could singlehandedly fund an investigation. Feel free to email Spot.Us Team if you have questions. We tend to approve accounts within 24 hours.
Spot.Us is an opportunity to bolster your freelance budget by working with and for the public. We only work with freelancers, we cannot support staff writers (this may change for nonprofit news organizations). But if you do work or want to procure freelance work, perhaps part of their wage can be shared with the public. You can donate 50% of their freelance salary upfront and the Spot.Us community can fundraise the other 50%. Your organization will still get first publishing rights. Or you can register on Spot.Us and find out about high quality articles that have been 100% community funded, so the reporting comes from a profesional reporter, but you can run the content for free.
Here Are Various Ways Your Organization Can Get InvolvedSO MUCH!!!
We have lots planned. Our website is currently 1/4th of what we envision. As we develop the open source code we want to add the ability for journalists to report on their pitches in public on the Spot.Us site. We will add more functionality for all three types of users (citizen, reporter, news organization) and who knows what else we might cook up along the way. We are responsive to you, so your feedback is welcome.
We do hope to eventually expand into other regions of the country. We are committed to local journalism for many reasons which we could talk your ear off about. As such, the Bay Area seemed like a great place to launch our 1.0 and we expanded into LA. As we improve the site we will launch in other cities.
Stories From The Ingleside (and Beyond) $183.00 to go 
Indian Wars in Minnesota $132.00 to go 
Cityhood for East LA? $285.00 to go 
Redevelopment Hell $450.82 to go
Spot.Us is an open source project to pioneer “community powered reporting.” Through
Spot.Us the public can commission and participate with journalists to do reporting on
important and perhaps overlooked topics. Contributions are tax deductible and we partner
with news organizations to distribute content under appropriate licenses.
READ MORE »
