Pay to Play

As bloggers, the staff of the Cyberdale often finds itself writing stories of stories of stories of stories of stories of items that originated from events and narratives that began their existence outside the net. This means news articles from traditional media, as well as public events that predate the Web but that now find new life and new spin from this generation of wired observers to name two kinds. But not today. Today, we bring you a story of a story of a story of a story that came to life because its creator is a blogger who thought to tap the power of his readers for more than ego support.

This is about Joshua Ellis who wrote a proposal in his blog that he would travel to the atomic bomb test site in Los Alamos and write a story about it if his readers would fund him to the tune of $500. He raised the money, set off on his trip, and posted the results.

It's definitely a good bit of blog-style writing - blog writing tends to be heavier on intimate personal observations juxtaposed with - sometimes questionable - sweeping pronouncements. Witness, for example, Ellis' observations on the city of Los Alamos: "It is an odd little place -- beautiful, to be sure, but it seems devoid of the sort of small-town closeness that other small American cities like it possess, where everybody knows everybody else. There seem to be a lot of strangers living next to one another in Los Alamos."

I'm not sure how much credibility we should grant a tourist on such a brief sojourn in reaching such a conclusion. Like most tourists, even especially sensitive ones, I suspect Ellis is merely finding what he expects to find. Or perhaps because he is himself a stranger, he sees strangers everywhere. Its also at least a little bit difficult to take completely seriously someone who posts a list of "ninja skills" on his bio page next to - and with no ironic separation from - his traditional professional accomplishments.

Having said that, we still enjoyed his essay and will leave it to the professional journalists, historians and physicists to say whether the information and observations in his essay have any lasting merit. We here at the Cyberdale are more interested in the very real merits suggested by the success of Ellis' project for how readers can now help determine the content they want to support and can use the power of the purse to raise the standards of the stories they get from the net.

And perhaps also raise the standards of their existing media. This might be a way for more traditional outlets to pick up a bit more of the investigative report they used to do but have gotten away from because of the effort and expense involved. I wonder if the Southern would be willing to propose multi-layered stories on local and regional topics to its readers with the understanding that in order to do them, those readers would have to make special monetary contributions above their regular subscriptive responsibilities? How about offering us a menu of special subjects that we can choose from with the editorial greenlight going to the one (or ones) that find greatest financial favor?

Or is this too much baggage to pack on such an unique, personal project? Its certainly easier to ask for a small amount of money to support something unexpected than it is to raise larger sums in an ongoing fashion for things we already pay for. Perhaps local bloggers might benefit more from this approach than institutional information outlets? Prefunding could certainly help those bloggers to raise their eyes and standards in reaching for stories of greater complexity than that which can be settled with a laptop at Panera fueled by coffee and a multigrain bagel.