Digital / Media
Journalism Project Spot.Us Teams With USC Annenberg
- Spot.Us founder David Cohn
September 28, 2009 9:56 AM
Spot.Us, the community funded journalism project founded less than a year ago in San Francisco, announced it is expanding to Los Angeles through a collaboration with the USC Annenberg School of Journalism.
The partnership, which will integrate Spot.Us’ innovative news delivery method with the journalism academy and strengthen ties to the local media, is made possible by additional funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, one of the original backers of the project. Among other things, the grant will fund local staff to coordinate freelancers and publications in the Los Angeles area and further site development.
“We’ve had a lot of success in the Bay Area, and we want to be a network for community journalism, not just a single-city site,” said Spot.Us founder David Cohn. “We are committed to civic journalism because that is what has been hit the hardest, and to really cover civic issues, you have to be local. The partnership with USC gives us the perfect opportunity to work in another city taking all we have learned and built in San Francisco.”
A pioneer in community funded journalism, Spot.Us is the only “crowd-sourced” Web site that focuses on local, long-form reporting. Visitors to the site may choose to donate money to support investigative reporting on an issue of their choice.
Once completed, the reports are solicited for distribution through local media outlets - if no outlet is found, the story is posted on the Spot.Us site. If wider distribution is found, the story is sold to the outlet and the donation is refunded.
By encouraging partnerships with other news organizations, the project expanded the readership of its stories beyond the site, collaborating with national publications such as The New York Times and local organizations such as the Oakland Tribune and radio station KALW.
Launched in November of 2008 after being selected a winner of the Knight Foundation’s Knight News Challenge, more than 800 people have funded more than 30 projects on Spot.Us with an average donation of just over $40. The site also has received support from local foundations.
“The Knight Foundation funded - and continues to fund - Spot.Us because it uniquely combines local investigative journalism with Web 2.0 technology,” said Gary Kebbel, journalism program director at the Knight Foundation.
Stories funded by Spot.Us cover community concerns such as environmental, budgetary and cultural issues. “Breaking the Wall of Silence” was an investigative report into the civilian oversight of police in Oakland. “A Tale of Two Zip Codes” examined diminishing anti-poverty programs in the Tenderloin neighborhood. One story, “Follow the Trash,” which detailed where a local community’s recycling goes after pick up, turned into a collaboration with San Francisco magazine.
“With traditional journalism models facing economic challenge, it’s clear that we must find new ways to support the critically important work of journalism. Spot.Us represents a new way to ensure that communities get the stories that matter most to them,” said Geneva Overholser, School of Journalism director.
TAGS: innovation, research
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USC in the News
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The Chronicle of Higher Education mentioned USC’s $6 billion fundraising campaign. The story noted that USC had already raised $1 billion in a “quiet phase,” including the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College.
The Guardian (U.K.) highlighted two major gifts to USC in a list of the 10 biggest philanthropic benefactors in America. The list included the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College, and the $110 million gift from USC Trustee and USC Viterbi School alumnus John Mork and wife Julie to create the USC Mork Family Scholars Program.
The New York Times featured the USC U.S.-China Institute documentary “Assignment: China — The Week that Changed the World.” The documentary, part of a series, examines media coverage of the 1972 Nixon trip that reshaped U.S.-China relations after a quarter century of isolation and hostility. “People look back now and take it for granted that the outcome was preordained,” said the institute’s Mike Chinoy, who produced the documentary. Voice of America also featured the story.
Los Angeles Times featured the Oscar Senti-meter, a tool developed by the USC Annenberg School, Los Angeles Times and IBM that analyzes thousands of tweets about the Academy Awards nominees. The story noted that Mexican actor Demian Bechir received an enormous boost on Twitter the day of the nominations, with a total of 6,893 tweets mentioning him, a 47-fold increase from the day before. The story noted the tool uses language-recognition technology developed in collaboration with USC Viterbi School’s Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab.
The Times of India (India) featured a three-day medical emergency training workshop organized in association with USC. At the workshop, held at GCS Medical College in India, 50 doctors and more than 100 paramedics learned how to improve emergency support systems. William Mallon of the Keck School of USC said that discussion topics included the use of portable ultrasonic devices to scan patients. “The ultrasound applications help physicians make accurate and timely decisions,” he noted. Daily News & Analysis (India) also featured the workshop.
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