Spot.us Hopes You’ll Help Pay Their Freelancer

Written by Jaymi Heimbuch

Thursday, 10 July 2008

Spot.us is a nonprofit that works to empower individuals and communities to expand news coverage by helping cover the cost of commissioning freelance journalists. They’re barely getting started and already have an interesting pitch for a story, but now they need the money to cover...you guessed it…the commission for the freelancer. And they’d like you to help out. While we don’t normally post items like this, we thought this was pretty relevant and that EcoGeeks may be interested in helping out.

A writer from Wired has pitched a freelance reporting job to Spot.us. The story would uncover a pretty major oversight on the part of California’s biofuel industry. As the contact from Spot.us states:

Almost all of California's ethanol runs through a single terminal. If there were a disruption at that terminal the state's gasoline infrastructure could grind to a halt. We want to expose this oversight and report on technology in the works to save the situation. More details can be found here. The final feature-length story will be licensed under creative commons and given away for free.

Spot.us needs 15 people to donate $10 to reach their goal. If you’d like to help out, visit ThePoint – which, according to the site, only charges if the financial goal is met – if they don’t make it to their goal, you don’t waste your money. So if you’re feeling generous, this could be a cool way to spend a part of your stimulus package.

Comments (3)

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Thanks for spreading the word
written by Digidave , July 10, 2008

I'm really glad that Eco-Geek is helping to spread the word. At Spot Us we really believe that this is a story that will help bring important attention to an otherwise overlooked problem with Ethanol.

If anybody has questions: Feel free to contact me via Spot.us

Interesting
written by The Food Monster , July 11, 2008

http://thefoodmonsterblog.blogspot.com
I think that it would be great to have that freelance journalist cover this story, and I am sure there are many others out there as well. Although, I am undecided on if this is the best avenue of approach for a request for funding. I like ecogeek, and don't want it to be abused. I would like to add that Spot.us is a promising venture, if you have the money, definitely support it.
Another thing, I think this would be a great way to request those funds, as long as we get the article published here when it is complete. That would help me be ok with this.

An update and answer to questions
written by Digidave , July 11, 2008

Food Monstor
Good questions.

First an update: We are 76% funded!!! We only need 60 more dollars. So even a small donation of $5 helps a lot.

Spot Us is a platform - so the story that is funded can be republished anywhere. When the final story is done it will be licensed under Creative Commons - so Eco-Geek will have every right to republish it. The only time a story WON'T be creative commons is if a news organization refunds the original donors - so they get their money back. In that situation, the organization in question gets exclusive rights to the story for the first X weeks. Then - the story will be open to the public again.

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