Crowdfunding website Kickstarter is putting a new focus on journalism and linking with the Guardian to highlight projects with journalistic potential.
From Wednesday Kickstarter will have a dedicated category for journalism projects seeking financial backing, as it already does for sectors including technology and film.
At the same time the Guardian is launching a curated page on the Kickstarter site on which it will pick out noteworthy projects.
Caspar Llewellyn Smith, the Guardian’s interim network editor and head of culture, said: “At the Guardian, we’re excited by new forms and models of journalism, and Kickstarter’s focus on the fourth estate is something we’re happy to support by helping pick the projects that we think look most interesting.”
“Kickstarter’s journalism category will be a home for projects that have until now landed in other areas of the website, and it reflects our interest in helping new journalistic models thrive,” the online crowdfunding service said. “Against a backdrop of flux and confusion in the journalism business, more than $10m has been pledged to 2,000-plus journalism, periodical, radio, and podcast projects on Kickstarter to date.”
Journalism projects funded via Kickstarter over the past five years include Homicide Watch, an experiment in online reporting aimed at covering every murder in Washington for one year; longform digital journalism project Matter, co-founded by former Guardian journalist Bobbie Johnson and later bought by Ev Williams’ Medium; and the Vancouver Observer’s year-long initiative the Tar Sands Reporting Project, illuminating all facets of the tar sands industry and its impact on Canadian society.
The Guardian also developed a crowdfunding platform for journalism called Contributoria that launched in January this year. Members of the Contributoria community collaborate on all aspects of the writing process including commissioning, editing and publication.
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