Crowdfunding critical journalism, and why it's good for democracy
(Note: I originally wrote this article for Contributoria as Crowdfunding Critical Thought , and it is republished here under a Creative Commons license. To republish please attribute original) Greg Palast’s approach to investigative journalism can be summed up in one phrase: Stand up for the underdogs, and take on the fatcats . His hard-hitting reports on corporations like ExxonMobil, politicians like Bush, and shadowy institutions like vulture funds stem from an impulse to challenge those players with the power to bend the rules to their private advantage. That’s why functioning democracies need people like Palast. Such a role faces two unique challenges though. Firstly, powerful institutions and individuals tend to hide behind walls of secrecy that extend over vast geographical space. Investigating a corporation, or a government spy programme, requires a lot of time, a lot of travel, and a lot of prying into hard-to-access information sources. HMM, WHERE TO START? Secondly, it enta...