An Unfunded Service

The New York Times and ProPublica want a $1 million Knight News Challenge grant to create an online repository for documents related to news stories.

I couldn't restrain myself from pointing out that this site performs a rather similar function without external financing. I go out and get documents myself about 90 percent of the time, funding costs out of my own pocket at about the same percentage. The remaining 10 percent are either donated by sources or funded by freelance employers.

I can't imagine why someone would need $1 million to simply publish source documents, especially since both the NYT and ProPublica already operate their own Web sites, which are eminently suited to the task.

While it's great to see the mainstream media finally coming around to the idea of providing primary source material to readers, I am not the only one out here who has been doing it for free, for years.

A seven-figure grant would, in my opinion, be much better spent providing litigation support to independent journalists working through the Freedom of Information Act than giving free money to for-profit media companies in order to subsidize something they're already able to do.

Labels: Weblog

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Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink