One Week In, Kickstarter Campaign Hits Over 30% of Goal

The Save Journalism Project Freelance Reporting Initiative Kickstarter is over 30% funded with more than 50 donors, just one week after launch. Following another wave of layoffs, the Save Journalism Project launched the Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to hire laid-off reporters to write freelance stories highlighting the challenges posed to the journalism industry by the tech giants. 

According to John Stanton – co-founder of the Save Journalism Project and former DC bureau chief of BuzzFeed, before being laid off in January – “Over the past week, journalists, allies, and the public have chipped in what they can to support journalists and defend journalism against the looming threat of big tech. We’re hopeful that we have the opportunity to fund these reporters, help our colleagues handle sudden layoffs, and ensure these stories are told.” 

Today, publications can pay as little as 25 cents per word for a freelance piece. The Save Journalism Project Freelance Reporting Initiative will pay freelancers $2 a word, far more than the going rate and reflective of the need to support high-quality journalism. Our goal with this initiative is to raise $10,000 to enable us to commission five stories of 1,000 words each. Stories will include deep reporting on how communities and newsrooms are affected by the loss of news outlets, and how the tech giants like Google and Facebook have come to dominate the digital advertising market so comprehensively and at the expense of news publishers.