I’m not asking if you would pay for press coverage as a business if it were possible. I’m asking if you would ever do it as an individual, when you think there’s something that’s been under-reported or even downright unreported to date and you want to see that situation changed.

If you were looking for a story to be told that you consider to be missing from the news coverage already out there, would you be inclined to take out your wallet, and maybe even rally your friends, family and peers to do the same in order to be able to pay a reporter to do the fieldwork on your behalf?

Because that’s exactly what Global For Me’s is trying to do.

Here’s how it works: you suggest a story to be investigated on the GFM website, and donate personally or together with others until you have the necessary funds to effectively have the company find and hire a journalist for you to—and I’m quoting from the website here—”go to briefings, press conferences, request interviews or door stop reluctant interviewees on your behalf.” Examples given on the homepage include politicians and local authorities but also “celebrities” and “anybody else”. In my opinion, that sounds more like hiring a private detective, but maybe I’m missing something here.

Could this model ever work?

Read more . . .

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5. Now on YouTube, Local News

Tags: celebrities, Innovation, interviewees, journalist, local authorities, peers, politicians, press conferences, private detective, request interviews

This entry was posted on Friday, May 15th, 2009 at 11:06 am and is filed under Innovation, TechCrunch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.