For those of you who followed Lindsay Beyerstein’s posts from New Orleans over at Majikthise, she is raising money to cover the trial of Tom Delay. (Those of you didn’t read her New Orleans pieces should do so.)
In addition to supporting a talented writer on this project, by donating you can help to start a new model of journalism that has been emerging in the last year or so. Until recently, the standard refrain from many has been that bloggers are dependent on the mainstream media for stories, which is usually true. And many complain that they merely comment, which need not be true, and is increasingly less and less true. “Blogging” stories, as Lindsay did in New Orleans, or Joichi Ito did from Madrid, seems a next step in the evolution of how we get information. And it seems a sphere where popular funding can exist and check a bias toward corporate or other special interest funding.
If any of you have ever complained that the MSM is biased, is biased toward their supporters, owners, etc., and yet have gotten annoyed that they never ever admit it, here’s a model of news in which you know where the reporter stands and know what you think of their writing and their insight, which in Lindsay’s case is remarkable. So, if you like Lindsay’s stuff, find the story interesting and important, consider supporting her trip.