If it's possible to create a community of interest, what about a community of principal and interest?
That's the principle behind crowdfunding: Put some money in the pot to pay for the stories you'd like covered.
The Sunday New York Times has a look at spot.us and its plan later this year in San Francisco to finance journalism. The assignment is posted and the work seeks money. It's the latest in a group of unconventional business models in an era of challenged conventional business models.
Taken to extremes, of course, it's not a viable concept; journalism covers all sorts of things people might not support in the interest of providing an array of things people need to know.
But as the challenges mount to financing high-quality work, any form of a new business model is bound to be of appeal to struggling organizations.
