Five or so years ago I started a project to make it possible to crowdfund investigative journalism called Uncoverage. We launched with a review in the Times and things looked rosy. The premise: why should rich people - or editors - be the ones deciding what gets investigated? A couple of other projects have made a run at this too. The problem seems to be that the value proposition of “getting investigation” is too abstract for most people, and we’ve all been trained that information, and journalism, is free. The project flopped, as did its competitors like Beacon. The more recently launched Wikitribune is still going. The day we wake up as a society to the power of paying collectively for investigation into what may be hurting us instead of waiting for it to be done for us by the rich, nonprofits or thinly stretched newspapers will be a very important one. I wish I knew how to bring that about.

Well the thing is that somebody has to pay for it and there are pros and cons to every approach.

1. Reader Funded: Accountable directly to user contributions. Common with activists. Good for not being the but needs to raise interest. Sensationalizing is a temptation. Has an echochamber risk as passion sustains it even at the cost of rationality. The viewers must both care enough to support. See cases like Greenpeace trying to ban chlorine as the element of death. 2. Patron supplied: stable funding from a wealthy base. No need to try to sensationalize or generate a profit but control rests with them. 3. Government funded: similar to 2 but vulnerable to politics usually unless held as sacrosanct. 4. Ad funded: A hybrid system of 1 and 2 essentially. A broader base of supporters and only need to care enough to read to support but advertisers have influence. 5. Endowment based - a seed fund internally accountable only. Which means either nothing to keep itself in check or somebody able to exert influence.

There are no easy answers and all exist.