User:AmyLHodgson/sandbox

Crowdfunding
Recently, many scholars and journalists have increasingly become attuned to the shifts occurring within the newspaper industry, and general upheaval of the journalistic environment, as it adjusts to the new digital era of the 21st century. In the face of this, the practice of crowdfunding is increasingly being utilized by journalists to fund independent and/or alternative projects, establishing it as another relevant alternative practice to consider in the discussion of journalistic objectivity. Crowdfunding allows journalists to pursue stories of interest to them or that otherwise may not be covered adequately for a number of reasons. Crowdfunding supports journalists by funding necessary components like reporting equipment, computers, travel expenses if necessary, and overhead costs like office space or paying other staff on their team. A key component of crowdfunding and a significant motivator for journalists to use it is the lack of corporate backing. This means that the journalist has the autonomy to make editiorial decisions at their sole descrection but there is equally no financial support.

According to a study conducted by Hunter (2014), journalist's engaged in a crowdfunding campaign all held a similar opinion that their funders did not have control over the content, and that it was the journalist who maintained ultimate jurisdiction. However, this pronouncement was complicated by the sense of accountability or responsibility incited in journalists towards their funders. Hunter (2014) notes that this may have the effect of creating a power imbalance between funders and the journalist, as journalists want to maintain editorial control, but it is in fact the funders that decide whether the project will be a success or not.

To combat this, Hunter (2014) proposes the following strategies that journalists may employ to maintain a more objective approach, if desired:


 * Constructing an imaginary 'firewall' between themselves and their audiences
 * Limiting investment from any single source
 * Clearly defining the relationship they desire with funders at the outset of the project

The relationship and potential pressures the jounralist may feel from their investors on the types on investors they are working with. There are passive investors and active investors. Passive investors simply make their donation on the crowdfunding platform and walk away leaving everything to the discretion of the journalist. Active investors on the other hand partcipate a bit more in the production of the jouralistic piece. This can take various forms but often may include the investor providing feedback or ideas to the journalist or even recieving early copies of the work before it goes to the public. However, Hunter (2014) also found that the journalists in the study did feel a great deal of pressure to please their funders but were able to seperate it from influencing their work. The desire to satisfy the funders comes more from the attitude that the journalist wants to do quality work so that the investors feel that their money was well spent and less that they had to edit their work in a certain way to please the investors' own agenda.

Some journalists from the study firmly held the opinion that impartial accounts and a detached, namely "objective", reporting style should continue to govern, even within a crowdfunding context. Others, however, advocated that point-of-view journalism and accurate reporting are not mutually exclusive ideals, and thus journalists still may ascribe to quality factual reporting, sans the traditional practices or understanding of objectivity.

As mentioned at the top of the article, objectivity is a centuries long practice associated with what is considered professional journalism. However, crowdfunding shows that there is a great deal of interest and support for jounralism with a strong point of view. The study on crowdfunding done by Hunter (2014) showed that audiences are keen to fund projects with a specific point of view or pieces of advocacy journalism. Journalists are often using crowdfunding to pursue stories with a point-of-view that large corporations do not pursue adequately. The journalist explains the goal of the work they are trying to pursue and what resources are needed for it on crowdfunding platforms. Based on this information, funders decide to contribute or not. The desire or acceptance of opinionated journalism is especially clear with passive investors because they donate based on the journalist's pitch and let the journalist produce what they want. They essentially just want to support the journalist as an individual and allow them the freedom to pursue the project.

Journalists who use crowdfunding are often doing it to be out from under the control of larger journalism companies. This allows them to create the work they feel is important and are not reliant on a company to support them financially. Crowdfunding allows journalists a great deal of autonomy. They seek autonomy from the corporations as well as their funders. This means that they want to be completely independent and not held accountable to the agendas held by organizations or even their funders. As previously mentioned in this article, there is a deliccate relationship between the journalist and the funder. Without the funders the project simply