Cross-posted from the SplashCast blog because I thought it would be of interest to readers here as well.
One of the promises of the internet is to democratize access to both information and publishing. That democratization, in theory, makes voices outside of the halls of power more capable of changing the world than they would be otherwise. The jury is still out as to how real all of that is. There are lots of people and organizations giving it a try. Good deeds alone rarely pay the rent, though, and a relatively small number of people online want to watch often-depressing investigative journalism when there’s so much fun to be had in other media sectors.
Liz Gannes wrote a good article last week about the monetization challenges faced by Alive in Baghdad, a project she called “arguably the best-positioned citizen news video outfit in the world.” AiB is pursuing licensing deals with major media outlets but advertising doesn’t seem to be a very viable option for sustaining this fantastic project.
Who else is doing great investigative journalism in video on the web? I spent a fair chunk of time looking, and asking other people for their favorites. Here’s the best projects that I’ve found so far. Please leave more in comments so we can all be inspired.
Each of these shows illustrates a different model for financially sustaining investigative journalism: foundation support, viewer donation and licensing/advertising. There’s a lot of overlap between examples and models, but I think the differences will be clear if you give them a look. The final example is of a project that appears to be funded by a commercial video production business; that may be the best model in some circumstances.
I’ve placed the RSS feeds of the five shows below in a SplashCast channel that you can view here. Click on the “channel guide” button to switch between series, the thumbnails at the bottom of the player to switch episodes. If you’re a video (or audio) journalist or just want to share your favorite serialized media with visitors to your website – SplashCast is the ideal way to do it.
I hope you enjoy these selections.
Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! is a work of historic proportions. A daily show running an hour in length, DN is broadcast on over 500 radio and television, satellite and cable TV networks in North America. It’s also available as a video or audio podcast. It’s not exclusively, or even originally, an online project – but it’s so darned good I have to tell you about it. It’s the only media phenomena that’s made me cry more than once.
Each episode starts with a hard-hitting ten minute news round-up; the remainder of the hour is filled with world-class guests related to whatever is in the news that day. It’s incredible content.
Democracy Now, according to their Wikipedia entry, receives no money from corporate, government or Corporation for Public Broadcasting grants or funding. Founded in 1986, DN is filmed in New York City and is the flagship program of Berkley, California based Pacifica Radio. The show is funded entirely by foundations and viewer donations.
Alive in Baghdad
The aforementioned Alive in Baghdad, produced by Philadelphia based Small World News, publishes video footage made by paid Iraqi correspondents and others on the streets of Baghdad. That’s how I understand it, anyway. It’s a great way to see some perspectives that you don’t see in mainstream media and to say that it personalizes the people most impacted by US policy in Iraq is an understatement. (Check it out, it’s the second show in the channel displayed above.) It’s a great project that’s also the basis of the next selection on the list (Alive in Mexico) and plans to launch more outposts in the future.
If the Alive series can sustain itself, it will go down in history as one of the most important media efforts in the era of online media that’s emerging today. Small World News asks viewers for small one-time or monthly donations and occasionally licenses content. For more information about Alive’s monetization challenges, check out the link at the top of this post.
Alive in Mexico
The sister show of Alive in Baghdad, Alive in Mexico covers “everything from street battles in southern Mexico to Mexican culture and history.” “Tune in each week to learn something new about Mexico,” the website says. This too is great content, offering in-depth English language video about this very important but too-often ignored country. Mexico’s struggles are, in some ways, the world’s struggles and AiM is a great way to learn about them.
Talking Points Memo TV
Joshua Micha Marshall’s Talking Points Memo blog is one of the leading liberal political blogs online. It’s now expanded into a small media empire – including Talking Points Memo TV, a show that TPM makes for video blog network of networks, Next New Networks. The group says it broke and pushed to center stage the Alberto Gonzales/U.S. Attorneys scandal.
How do they do it financially? Though monetizing a liberal political blog is not an easy thing to do, it’s probably easier than any of the above models. The video component specifically is paid for by Next New Networks. NNN has raised $8 million in venture capital. In order for a company like Next New Networks to pay a video show’s producer, I imagine, it will have to have a lot of potential to make a lot of money.
Collateral News
Collateral News is a well produced series produced by Philly based WoodShop Films. It appears they do commercial video production to support their investigative journalism. Or they do investigative journalism that borders on conspiracy theory to drive traffic to their commercial video production business. Just joking, that’s not very likely. In a world where there’s relatively little demand for investigative journalism in online video – there is HUGE demand for commercial video production for media and marketing companies (some of the kinds of clients WoodShop lists.) Though they aren’t puting out an hour a day with high faluting guests, like Democracy Now!, or paying correspondents in remote, war torn parts of the earth – for what they are doing Collateral News may have the most viable model for financial sustainability yet. Some of their politics (and pedantic attitudes) really irk me, but it does seem that they are doing a good job so far.
Honorable mentions
Journeyman Pictures describes itself as “London’s leading independent distributor of topical news features, documentaries and footage. We’re like a video encyclopedia of the world.” Embedding turned off from YouTube, though.
People of the Web is the new Yahoo! project from Kevin Sites, intrepid reporter hired to run the Hote Zone series. Both are good, and People of the Web is pretty good – but it’s a little more fluffy than investigative. Definitely worth a watch though, and I love the site design.
Hot Air with Michelle Malkin is a really well produced video series. I’m sure some of the reporting is good, and I tried to include one conservative source in this list – but the content is just too offensive to post live on this blog.
LinkTV is something I don’t really understand, but it looks good. I think it’s a satelite TV station that buys documentaries from independent producers. Some good stuff, anyway.
So those are some of the best investigative journalism video projects I’ve found online, what about you? If you’ve got favorites, leave them here in comments – or better yet, build a SplashCast channel to show off your favorites on your blog, Facebook or MySpace page.
Know of any more business models being explored for this work? Have any thoughts (or clarification) on the ones mentioned above. We could all use any information you’ve got, dear reader, because the world needs more critical media online.