VITAMEDIAS
Have Web Site, Will Investigate: It was early April, war had just broken out in southern Iraq, and freelance journalist Christopher Allbritton was trying to get into the country. The borders of Iran and Syria were closed. So Allbritton spent $3,000 for a Kurdish guide to take him over the fortified and mountainous Turkish border into the land of Saddam Hussein. [...]
Allbritton didn't have a juicy contract with The Washington Post or CNN. Rather, his trip was funded by 320 people who donated $14,334 through his Web site, Back-to-Iraq.com. Months before the conflict began, the former Associated Press reporter posted a notice on his site: He wanted to cover the war and asked for readers' financial support for "independent journalism." As the cash rolled in, Allbritton hit the road with his laptop computer, filing via a satellite phone or Internet café. Donors were put on a premium e-mail list, so they received stories early and got extra reports and pictures. They also passed along story ideas and occasionally berated him for overheated metaphors. "Readers were my editors," he says.
Is this the future of journalism?