well, David *knows* exactly what the problem is… so I must have made it pretty clear:)

re: David: “Yes. A news organization that refunds the original donors does stand to make some money.”

so why is David giving away other people’s work and free interest loans for the financial gain of some news organization? he has wrongly likened his enterprise with kiva.org but there is no comparison: David’s enterprise is out to “help out” some news organizations (or free lancers or whatever) that are just out to make a profit… (not in any sort of dire straights).

why aren’t the profits at least shared with the community if a story turns out to be profitable? –> let it go towards other worthy stories that are not profitable but are worth reporting… why do the profits need to end up *all* in the pockets of somebody else? who’s interest is served here?

people are expected to do free work and give donations but if profit can be made they are not entitled to any of it! David’s going to let some news organization or whatever come along and acquire *exclusive rights*… and walk away with whatever can be made off of it… looks like a classic case of delivering the suckers!

Delia

P.S. ohh, and I believe the IRS is going to have a problem with this set-up also (as I said, the way it is set-up looks like an abuse of the non-profit designation: David’s enterprise isn’t itself profiting but is allowing the buyers — new organizations or whatever — to do that *instead*; looks like a straw man situation)

P.P.S. I’d like to think that David and his endorsers are just naive but it’s hard to believe… I mean, he *knows* what he’s doing…

P.P.P.S. anyways, I’d like to wrap this up — I said pretty much everything I had to say… (I’m also closing my “online journalism blog” — I think I’ve seen enough of this) D.

I’m still lost; you are throwing around too many words which don’t make sense together.

I’d take a guess what you were saying, but I don’t want to put words in your mouth.

I’d answer you, but I frankly have no idea what you are asserting here.

re:”the profits that could be had on the open market”

This *is* the open market. That’s the point. The expectation is, since this is an open bid system, it is more of a market than private bidding on stories, or the common act of assigning a story to a staff writer.

Jon

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=2411652386354465356&postID=4464240303655822960&isPopup=true

Delia

Jon,

I don’t know if you read my response to David’s comment on my blog (he posted his prior comment in three different places so I just answered on my blog). Here it is:

re: “Advice On Working With Spot.Us. How to bolster your freelance budget.

Donate 100% of the value of an investigation and you’ll get exclusive rights. You can do this at any time – all extra proceeds will be given back to community members to invest in another pitch.”

David,

You must know that there is money to be made from a good piece of journalism well beyond the costs of production (that would be just breaking even and would never work as a business model). So why are you volunteering the work of others — and the profits that could be had on the open market — to “bloster” the “freelance budget” of who knows whom? (makes me think you are a mole and are abusing the non-profit designation)

Delia
……….

you are welcome to show how the above is not “saving money” for some freelancers that are expected to rip the profits by selling the stuff in whatever form they would like (David’s enterprise is giving them *exclusive rights*) while the community that made it possible does not share into those profits in any way (they are just refunded their money — this is like asking people to put up investment money and the community to do all sort of work so that somebody can come along and make a profit from it and just refund *the investment money*… ; in case the if the can’t be sold to some freelancer … then, David’s enterprise would just call it a “donation,” and keep people’s money… (it *would* get the tax treatment as such but I believe this is an abuse of the non-profit designation because the donation is a merely a default in case profits can’t b made)

Delia