Through the Cracks: Crowdfunding in Journalism

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Uusi Inari is one of a couple projects by young journalists to make online news websites in Finland. Their Humans of Inari series was inspired by Humans of New York.

Q: Why are you a journalist or photographer or generally awesome person? A: I blame a combination of character flaws...

If you're reading this and thinking "What the hell, man? What happened to that original reporting I crave like air?"

Well we moved to our own url throughcracks.com.

Pink feather hat. Credit: Aline Smithson.

By Sandra Proudman

Aline Smithson, an award-winning photographer and founder of the blog Lenscratch, will publish her first monograph with some help from The Magenta Foundation, a Kickstarter campaign and her friends. 

Her book, Self & Others: Portrait as Autobiography, will include more than 100 fine art portraits pulled from 18 bodies of work, produced over a stretch of more than 20 years.

Cleo with a Mirror. Aline Smithson.

As of Friday, with five days to go, the campaign has raised $57,500, more than double the set goal of $25,000.

Only a handful of publishers are left that do not require the artist to pay for a book to be published, but the book must “fit their aesthetic and have a broad audience,” Smithson said.

“In terms of business, fine art photographers are in an age where the financial responsibility is almost wholly on their backs. Most galleries no longer pay for framing and only will pay partially for shipping—they too are struggling to stay in business,” Smithson said. “Today, the photographer has to not only create significant work, but be apt at social media, marketing and truly navigate their own career…It’s not an easy road.”

Had her crowdfunding campaign failed, Smithson said she would have had to finance the book herself to the tune of $15,000 to $35,000.

Her recommendations for artists who want to crowdfund a project in the future:

1. Start a mailing list early

2. Create a great video that reveals who you are

3. Don’t run a campaign during the holidays when money may be tight for your potential contributors

4. Be active within the community and support other artists campaigns

“I would say that I know 85 percent of the backers — most know some of my projects, but very few are completely aware of all the work that will be in the book,” Smithson told Through the Cracks. “I have spent many years supporting and celebrating other photographers and I am so humbled that they now have supported me.”

Arrangement in Green and Black #14: Portrait of the Photographer’s Mother as Elvis. Credit: Aline Smithson.

Backers who pledged the highest reward amount of $2,500 will receive a limited edition hand-painted silver gelatin print from her Arrangement Series, which is featured in the book. The subject for this series was her mother.

“She was 83 when I started the series and we worked together on it for two years. She passed away shortly after and would have been thrilled to know that she has been shown all over the world,” said Smithson. “The series is based on James McNeil Whistler’s Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter’s Mother. I wanted to explore his composition and the visual connections between the costume and the painting with humor and whimsy…I think people are hungry for humor.”

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Tar Heels fans at a football game. Credit: Elliott Rubin.

By Justin Cooper

Controversy in college sports isn’t unusual but usually fighting on the field makes the news.

At University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill it's the professors, boosters and fans who are throwing 'bows and calling each other names.

For years now there have been stories of student athletes who receive easy grades and take bogus classes. That’s a familiar accusation at most big sports colleges in America but then a critical study was produced that claimed to find evidence of favoritism and the term “Paper Classes” became a rallying cry.

Former UNC employee Bradley Bethel says that the study and people who accepted its findings are all wrong.

So last month he started a crowdfunding campaign to make a documentary to prove that the reputation of the prestigious university and its players are being dragged through the mud by pundits and the national media.

The response was swift.

His campaign hit its $50,000 goal in one day and with a little over two days to go, the 30-day campaign has raised more than $120,000.

“For over three years now, local and national media outlets have been perpetuating a sensationalized narrative based on conjecture, insinuation and false information,” Bethel said on his campaign page.  “As a result, what you think you know about the alleged athletics scandal at UNC is probably wrong.”

The initial scandal broke as a result of research by Mary Willingham, a former academic advisor at UNC. She describes an institution that protects and coddles unprepared college athletes by funneling them through independent study courses with the academic rigor of a middle school.

About a year ago Bethel started taking small bites out of the prominent narrative of Willingham’s research from his blog Coaching the Mind.

He contends that Willingham’s findings were collected unethically, contain erroneous conclusions and that the data was paired with unfairly hand-selected anecdotes. In short: student athletes were getting an unjust bad rap.

UNC player Tyler Zeller warms up at the Carrier Classic aboard USS Carl Vinson in 2011. Credit: U.S. Navy.

To create the documentary, Bethel has assembled a talented group of professionals, including producer Connie Lo Ferrara, associate producer of a documentary that examines the media's account of the Penn State sexual abuse scandal.

In his blog, Bethel said his motivation behind the documentary goes all the way back to his childhood when he was hesitant to prevent the harassment of his friend from the neighborhood bully.

"I could not tolerate feeling like I was back at the neighborhood basketball court, watching my friend get punched in the face. I had to fight back, whether or not anyone else wanted me to do so."

UNC Chapel Hill vs. Michigan State University at the Carrier Classic in San Diego in 2011. Credit: U.S. Navy.

UNC professor Jay M. Smith joined forces with Willingham to create Paper Class Inc., an organization pushing educational reform by igniting a national conversation around literacy and athletics.

Last year Smith called Bethel a “rabid attack dog” on the site Paper Classes Inc.

“He wants to protect…the collegiate model of sport whose virtues he has made part of his own identity, the very justification for his professional life,” Smith wrote on the website.  

Later this year Smith and Willingham will release the book Cheated: The UNC Scandal, the Education of Athletes, and the Future of Big-Time College Sports.

By Alexandra Meleán

Next month London-based photographer Rhiannon Adam will sail to an island 3,000 kilometers west of Chile for a three month tour. Like the Polaroid film she will use during her time on the British Overseas Territory, Pitcairn Island is rare and hard to find.

Her idea to visit "Britain's most isolated community," with only 47 residents, hit a nerve with Kickstarter photo bugs.

With less than a day left in her campaign, about 220 backers have pledged £11,400 (roughly $17,600).

“I want to draw out the parallels between the fragility of the dead stock Polaroid film and the delicate and precarious nature of Pitcairn,” Adam writes.

Two centuries ago, British seafarers boarded the “The Bounty,” a ship commanded by William Bligh, whose mission was to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti.

Controversially, sailors began having sex with Tahitian women and taking wives, leading Christian Fletcher and the crew to commit mutiny in order to avoid returning home.

To avoid the British Royal Navy, fugitives settled on Pitcairn Island, starting a new community approximately 9,000 miles away from London.

Adam will sail from Tahiti to Mangareva, where she will board a supply ship one of three supply ships that visit the island every year.

Over the next three months and using alternative photographic processes, Adam aims to complete a unique photographic project documenting the 47 permanent residents of the island, the descendants of Tahitian women and British mutineers.

The BBC and Royal Geographic Society Journey Lifetime Award, a grant worth 5,000 euros, will allow Adam to shoot video and produce a documentary of her experience.

Wastelands/Dreamlands, a publication inspired by Adam's childhood spent at sea, also reflects on what it means to be British, both at home and abroad.

Through the Cracks interviewed Adam about her creative process and experience crowdfunding her photographic project. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Meleán: Why do you shoot with expired film?

Adam: I shoot with expired film mainly because I love the definition of original Polaroid film and I have no choice - Polaroid doesn't exist per se anymore, so I shoot with it because I can't buy new film. I have also made a pact with myself to shoot with expired Polaroid film ‘till it dies out completely. I like the idea of following a medium through to its inevitable end. The Polaroid story is crazy really - one where finance got in the way of creativity and took a whole medium away from artists.

With my Pitcairn project I wish to draw out a comparison between the dying film and the fragile nature of the community that I'll be recording. It seems a fitting "last blast" for the film while it's still in a good enough state to render results....

Meleán: Will this be your last Polaroid project? Adam: This won't be my last Polaroid project. I'm a Polaroid photographer and it defines me and my practice... I'll shoot it until there is no film to shoot. I'll use all my available stock for this project on Pitcairn, so then it'll be back to eBay to source more. I use Polaroid because I see it as the bridge between fine art and photography - creating one off objects rather than photographs.

When I say this is my last project, I mean it will be the last major project because I won't have a chance to stockpile more film, or dream up such a big and detailed project. There just isn't time- each day that passes means the film gets older. It's getting to the turning point where I can't rely on it anymore.

So this is my last swan song - a chance for me to bring everything I've learned and experienced and wish to show all in one place.

After Polaroid? Maybe I won't photograph anymore. Maybe I'll learn to paint.

Meleán: Where did you spend the majority of your childhood?

Adam: I was born in Ireland and lived there until I was 6, in the Republic near Cork. My dad is a boatbuilder and it was his big dream to sail around the world on a boat, so we bought a boat, Jannes, and then my mother, father and I became nomads. I moved to England as a teenager to live with my aunt, but in the interim we were sailing around, mostly in the Caribbean and South America.

It's a strange life. You're like a hermit crab carrying your home with you but never really being a part of the place where you are. You are in a no mans land of identity. You no longer belong to where you came from and don't belong to where you are.

Meleán: Why do you want to make a photographic record of Pitcairn Island? Adam: I became interested in Pitcairn when I read Mutiny on the Bounty while we were sailing. It's the last remaining British Overseas Territory in the Pacific Ocean and the world's most remote and least populated country. They experience many of the same things we did when we were sailing.

Much of my work is autobiographical and this seems like the ultimate expression of this - revisiting my childhood through the experience of Pitcairn.

They are British, but not, if you know what I mean. British in name and not by nature. That's rather how I feel.

Meleán: Will you produce a documentary during your stay on the island? If so, will you have a film crew? What challenges do you expect to face?

Adam: I will travel to Pitcairn alone, and my focus is on the photography element and the radio documentary I will make for the BBC, who also funded my endeavor. I will be taking some super 8 [film footage], a GoPro and a Canon 5D Mark II, which will allow me to make some video, but this is an intimate and absorbing experience that would only be diluted by crew. It's something I need to do on my own.

Meleán: Do you have any advice for documentary photographers launching crowdfunding campaigns? What worked and what didn't?

Adam: I chose to match fund my project on Kickstarter after I won a grant from the BBC and Royal Geographical Society that meant I had to deliver a radio show by September 2015.

I didn't have a lot of time and Kickstarter seemed an efficient way to get my story out there. There was only one boat scheduled to get to Pitcairn and get me back in time for those delivery dates and the grant was only awarded at the end of January, so I had to find a fast way to generate project momentum and funding.

Kickstarter has pushed me to promote the project and announce it before I usually would; it necessitates a different kind of promotion that I'm not altogether comfortable with, but there are many plus sides. The best part has been that people all over the world have been in touch and offered their advice or their homes for me to stay in.

It really is true that Kickstarter is a community of supporters and you have a lot of people gunning for you. It's encouraging, because often you might think an idea is just good to you, but when the backers come in you know you're onto something and it gives you a big boost of confidence.

You have to be transparent and accountable and you can't underestimate the amount of time running a campaign takes. I messaged my Facebook friends and already had a 2,000-strong-mailing-list. I asked people to tweet and share even if they couldn't back it themselves and the word got around fast!

The only issue I didn't foresee is that when you set your reward levels and postage rates. That is to say: you offer a reward at $20, and postage is $10 within the U.S. Then $30 counts towards your target. But if you set your postage to $20 for international, the $20 reward suddenly turns into $40 and that makes you reach your target faster though a greater proportion of the money is actually hard costs. If you have a lot of international backers that can have a huge effect... It can artificially inflate your funds and as you get closer to the target, people back less.

It's a tough call as you can never really predict how much international interest you will get. So be careful about shipping charges and where you are willing to ship!

To follow Adam’s journey, follow her Facebook page PolaroidPhotographer or on Twitter @blackbirdsfly or visit her blog.

Gazan body builders jovially struck poses after a workout, 2013. Credit: Tanya Habjouqa.

By Carlos Moreno

Whenever you see reports from Palestine in the news, you expect conflict with Israel and a region at war. Military movement and acts of terror make the news.

You don’t expect to laugh.

To show a side of life that isn’t typically reported, Tanya Habjouqa met Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem for her "Occupied Pleasures" photo series.

“I want people to look and see the people who’ve been reduced to a complete stereotype. I wanted people to look and laugh and think,” she said during an interview with Slate Magazine.

A Jordanian-born, Texas-raised photographer living in East Jerusalem, Habjouqa felt compelled to share another side of Palestinian life in part because it’s the experience of her Palestinian husband and two children.

West Bank : Two furniture makers take a break in a pair of plush armchairs (of their creation) in the open-air in Hizma, against Israel's 26-foot high Separation Wall. 2013. Credit: Tanya Habjouga.

“I really felt I needed to find another way to tell a story, not only just to make sense of it for myself but to make sense of it for how I’m going to present it to my children as well, since this is going to be their home too,” she told The New York Times Lens blog.

A veteran visual storyteller, Habjouqa has covered gender, social and human rights issues in the Middle East for most of her career. She is a founding member of Rawiya, the first female Middle Eastern photo collective.

Sabah Abu Ghanim, 15 years old, Gaza City. Credit: Tanya Habjouqa.

With support from FotoEvidence she launched a successful Kickstarter campaign last month to put "Occupied Pleasures" into book form. At the time this story was published the campaign had raised $34,000, exceeding an initial goal of $21,150. The campaign ends Wednesday.

FotoEvidence has been behind several successful photo books and projects backed by the Kickstarter crowd, most recently Andrea Star Reese’s look at life inside tunnels below Harlem in New York City.

Being Jordanian and living in the area helped her gain access but not everyone was immediately open with Habjouqa.

To convince some photo subjects, Habjouqa carried with her some of the images that would be included in the series and explained the project’s intent.

“There was certainly a hesitancy and certainly some distrust. With the ‘hyper narration’ that happens here, there’s also hyper political agenda, especially in this conflict. People have been grossly misrepresented,” she said.

West Bank: Students from the Al-Quds University javelin team wrap up the last practice before summer vacation in the West Bank city of Abu Dis, next to the Israeli Separation Wall. 2013. Credit: Tanya Habjouqa.

The “Occupied Pleasures” series was partially funded by the Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund in 2013, which helped distribute her work to traditional and new media outlets in collaboration with nonprofits and NGOs.  

The series won a World Press photo award last year.

By Khari Johnson

With a Kickstarter campaign started earlier this week, Boston-based GlobalPost is looking for $95,000 to hire, train and properly equip a conflict correspondent to travel to war zones around the world.

Starting in mid-2015, the temporary position will last for 16 months.

"War reporting is expensive and dangerous, yet it is vital to the public interest," GlobalPost said on their campaign page.

As of when this story was published Thursday, the campaign has brought in $11,500 from 130 backers. If the campaign succeeds, it will become the fifth most funded project ever in Kickstarter's Journalism category.

"We've believe there's never been a time when covering conflict matters more," said Patrick Winn, senior correspondent in Bangkok in the campaign's pitch video.

GlobalPost turns to the crowd for funding during one of the most dangerous periods of reporting for international journalists on record when reporters are increasingly treated, not as neutral parties, but targets.

More journalists have been killed in the last three years than any other time since the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) began keeping track in 1992.

Nearly half of those killed during that period were in the Middle East, among them James Foley, a GlobalPost contributor decapitated last summer by Islamic State.

These attacks represent "a fundamental threat to independent journalism," states a letter cosigned earlier this month by GlobalPost and two dozens news organizations around the world.

Budgetary restraints have made international correspondents less of a priority for many news organizations.

The letter demands that news organizations "recognize that local journalists and freelancers, including photographers and videographers, play an increasingly vital role in international coverage, particularly on dangerous stories."

The Guardian News and Media group, Newsweek and the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines later signed on to the letter.

"Locally-based journalists face by far the largest threat and endure the vast majority of murders, imprisonments and abductions. We call on governments, combatants and groupsworldwide to respect the neutrality of journalists and immediately end the cycle ofimpunity surrounding attacks on journalists," the letter reads. "At the same time, the kidnapping and murder of reporters James Foley and Steven Sotloff brought to light the growing risks faced by international freelance journalists."

The letter supports the following:

- Editors and news outlets "should show the same concern for the welfare of local journalists and freelancers that they do for staffers."

- Never assign a story to a freelancer unless the news organization is "prepared to take the same responsibility for the freelancer’s wellbeing in the event of kidnap or injury as it would a staffer."

- Reporters should procure medical insurance, some training, protective gear and take precautions to avoid mobile and internet tracking.

- News organizations should be concerned for the safety of regular freelancers the same as they are staff when it comes to things like injury, kidnapping, training and security.

Shortly after the founding of GlobalPost in 2009, The GroundTruth Project, an organization to train combat journalists, was created by GlobalPost cofounder Charles Sennott.

See these stories by the Boston Globe and CPJ stories for more information about the rising threat against freelancers and what news organizations are doing about it.

By Khari Johnson

Olivier Kamanda wants to blow something up in the news, not to incite the latest moral crusade because reporters are the worst. He wants to blow up people’s perceptions of volunteerism and engagement. He wants to eviscerate these things to bring out a good response to bad news.

“When I think volunteer, most people think of someone who shows up at 5 o’ clock in the morning to work in a soup kitchen or a senior center or help to clean up a school,” he said.” When the reality is there are so many different ways to engage an issue that really make use of a person’s skills.”

“To the extent that there are any number of professions in the world, there are that many ways to help and use those skills for an organization or advocacy group.”

Ideal Impact brought in $17,000 on Indiegogo last week and will be a mobile app, web browser plugin and embeddable widget designed to tell people exactly how they can make a difference, no matter the topic.

Ideal Impact will combine crowdsource user ratings like the kind you find on Yelp with nonprofit ratings agencies like Guidestar.

In addition to a plugin, Kamanda and the Ideal Impact team want to put a badge at the bottom of every story right next to social media sharing buttons, giving people the immediate option to be more than clicktavists.

“That’s the value of expanding and essentially blowing up our concept of civic engagement and forcing people to reimagine the way engagement is happening.”

Ironically, Kamanda’s work in a soup kitchen is what inspired Ideal Impact.

Just before the launch of a campaign for Miriam’s Kitchen in D.C., Kamanda said city leaders told them they needed to be shown that people care about the issue of homelessness. Shortly after came “Invisible Child,” a five-part New York Times series about a homeless girl and her family. In response to the report, the nonprofit saw a surge of people who wanted to end homelessness.  

“Spending a lot of time myself knocking on doors, engaging people, trying to get my friends to donate to different campaigns or nonprofits or advocacy functions and just thinking there’s got to be a better way, particularly using technology that’s out there,” he said.

Connecting people who want to affect change with change makers may also cut down on the inefficient amount of hours and money nonprofits spend trying to find volunteers, he said.

Kamanda is currently a fellow at the Halcyon Incubator and the Truman National Security Project in Washington D.C. Before that he was a speech writer for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for the Adams Morgan area of Washington D.C.

Though he has a background in government and politics, Kamanda says Ideal Impact is not designed to have any political leaning or affiliation. In other words, Ideal Impact does not plan to become a tool to mobilize voters ahead of the 2016 presidential race.

"This really isn’t about politics or business," he said. "The platform that we’re trying to create is, at the end of the day, essentially it’s a social impact platform"

"When you’re reading a story that really touches you or inspires you that urge is almost visceral, right? Like the feeling that you can contribute something which is totally independent from politics. So our role really is to tap into that and I wouldn’t even bipartisan, it's a sort of nonpartisan platform."

Ideal Impact’s desire to supply more solutions to news may also be beneficial to the business of journalism.

Solutions journalism, also called constructive journalism, isn’t just social awareness. Perhaps contrary to popular belief, solutions journalism can be incredibly popular among readers, David Bornstein with the New York Times Fixes blog told journalism.co.uk.

Bornstein is also co-founder of Solutions Journalism Network, who released their free Solutions Journalism Toolkit last month.

Jeff Jarvis from the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism believes that bringing a social element to journalism changes the value of news. The center’s new social journalism masters program at City University of New York began this semester. Unlike Bornstein who says solutions journalism should remain objective, Jarvis thinks social journalists can be community activists.

An Ideal Impact pilot campaign is scheduled to begin in Washington D.C. this spring.

By Sandra Proudman

Award-winning José Gutiérrez Vivó returns to broadcast journalism with news startup Collective Beat following a successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter.

Silencio, Collective Beat’s first program, raised $28,500 from 320 backers on Kickstarter, well beyond their goal. 

It's made for hispanohablante, or the Spanish-speaking communities of the world, a population currently equal to about 350 million native speakers. The American enterprise will be transmitted entirely in Spanish.

"It's the rhythm, beat; it carries the concept of a collective march … I think there's a lot to talk about, a lot to learn," Vivó told the Mexican publication Chilango on the idea behind Collective Beat’s Silencio. 

Vivó is no stranger to the idea that reporting should be done “for the people." 

He was host of Monitor de la Mañana, a popular TV show in Mexico, which ran from 1974 until its termination in 2008.  He has won 12 national journalism awards in Mexico for his reporting.

“For the first time in Mexico, a media outlet directly served the community,” said Dr. Ernesto Lammoglia, a former collaborator for Grupo Monitor in a video about Vivó.

More than a dozen episodes of Silencio are available on iTunes and other podcast providers now, with new episodes airing Monday through Friday throughout February. Topics of discussion so far include education, corruption in the Mexican soccer league and an examination of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech.

Collective Beat’s team of three includes Vivó, founder Andrea Gutiérrez Vivó and producer and editor Justin Gonçalves. 

.@JGutierrezVivo Reflexiona: Cómo Salir de la Trampa https://t.co/kyu7D9DAdx #Mexico #Elecciones #INE #silencio pic.twitter.com/2FEbZRHKUM

An illustration of Vivó. Credit: Nate Kitch.

By Khari Johnson

Glad to see Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) include Through the Cracks in a roundup of resources for crowdfunding journalism published Tuesday.

The article starts with a link to a roundup of incredible stories written about by Through the Cracks, like El Español breaking a world record for funding and Massively Overpowered raising $50,000 in less than 48 hours to launch a new website a week after being fired by AOL.

Beyond what Through the Cracks adds to the article there are tips for crowdfunding platforms, pitch video tips and loads of other helpful resources.

Read the story on GIJN here.

By Khari Johnson

Some of the most successful projects in the Journalism category right now are devoted to telling stories from a women's perspective.

With less than 24 hours to go, the WIE Network in New York successfully raised $21,500 Tuesday. 

WIE, short for Women: Inspiration & Enterprise, is known for their symposiums that attract famous or influential women speakers like Ariana Huffington, Tyra Banks, Melinda Gates and Queen Rania of Jordan.

The money will help bring symposium video and other content to viewers online at wienetwork.org.

Also kicking butt on Kickstarter right now is the Femsplain (as in feminist explain) campaign. 

Halfway through their 30-day campaign, Femsplain has raised $17,000.

And just five days into their campaign, The Riveter, a longform magazine for women in Minneapolis, MN has raised $5,700.

Last October Through the Cracks brought you the story of a Millennial journalism magazine that published their first issue last month after a successful Kickstarter campaign.

Seems they're kicking butt too, selling out the shelves at Arnolfini in Bristol, said editor Sophie Elliott, seen here opening the first box fresh from the printer.

You can find Parallel Magazine and Parallel readers in social media at #unashamedlyfeminist.

Credit: Luke Cass.

By Khari Johnson

A podcast made possible one of the biggest media scandals of the last year, more than a dozen allegations of sexual abuse surrounding "Q" radio host Jian Ghomeshi.

“Canadaland was important to the story because my primary source only approached me in the 1st place because she had been told that I was the journalist willing to investigate and publish stories about the Canadian media. When she came to me, I didn't have to ask any editor for permission – I just investigated it,” Brown told Through the Cracks via email.

The story was published last October with help from Toronto Star. Ghomeshi was fired by CBC and in a matter of weeks 15 women came forward. He now faces multiple sexual assault charges.

Three Milestones

Concerned with a lack of media criticism in Canada, in October 2013 Brown started Canadaland, but after a year he announced that he would need to raise money or shut down. So Brown launched a subscription-based campaign on Patreon with three milestones.

In part with the help of some weird but funny tweets, it took less than a day for the site to hit the $1,000 a month mark necessary for Brown to continue the once a week podcast.

Weeks later, shortly before the Ghomeshi story became international news, Through the Cracks reported that the campaign was bringing in more than $4,500 a month.

Today Canadaland brings in about $9,600 a month from 1,900 patrons, in addition to sponsorship revenue.

Once the site hits $10,000 a month, Canadaland will reach its final stated milestone and Canadaland will become a full-fledged media organization with reporters, a podcast network and a national politics show.

“I’ve already hired a part-time editor for the website, and he's busy commissioning work from freelancers. And I've been searching for the right host(s) for the politics show,” Brown said.

MO, the new mascot of Massively Overpowered, massivelyop.net.

By Khari Johnson

On Feb. 3 staff at Massively were let go by AOL. By Feb. 7 former staff launched a Kickstarter campaign, and in less than 48 hours they had the money they needed to carry on as massivelyop.net. A new site was launched Feb. 11.

"We’re literally running on love right now," editor Bree Royce said in a summary of first week operations. "We won’t see a penny for quite a bit after the Kickstarter ends. But this has been so worth it. Thank you, all of you, for making a full-fledged MOP possible!"

With 19 days to go, the Massively Overpowered campaign has raised $62,000 from 1,300 funders.

A very similar story played out last month for an alternative weekly in Knoxville, TN. There the Metro Pulse was disbanded by its parent company. Coury Turczyn shredded his non-compete clause and banded with other former editors and freelancers raised $61,000 to launch Knoxville Mercury.

Credit: Svante Adermark.

By Khari Johnson

Madrid-based ElEspañol.com broke the world record for crowdfunding journalism Saturday, according to their website.

Rosa, a woman in Madrid, bought five shares of El Español to surpass the previous record set by the Dutch website De Correspondent in 2013.

Unlike De Correspondent, who asked people to pay an annual subscription, El Español is holding an equity crowdfunding campaign. That means people can buy a share of the company.

El Español's crowdfunding campaign ends in 13 days.