This month’s carnival of journalism question comes from Steve Outing, whose original post you can see here. Steve is in charge of a program called the Digital News Kitchen, based out of Colorado, which looks at emerging technology and how it can be used in publishing. As such, his questions was particularly appealing to me:

What I’d like to discuss is hard to call a trend. But I think in the next two years, and beyond, it will emerge as one. Readers will be increasingly willing to pay for good journalism, well presented.

I’m sick to the back teeth of being force-fed adverts that break up and intrude upon what I’m reading, or stories that have been published for the hell of it, and the way my local paper is guilty of churnalism because they are short staffed and the reporters can’t get out as much as they would like.

And I don’t think I’m alone. I enjoy good journalism, but I enjoy it less and less online, despite being an online junky, and one of the “new-media” generation of journos. I’m willing to pay to amend that.

You’ve probably heard about MATTER, if you’ve been on Twitter this week. It’s a Kickstarter project that launched just a few days ago. If you haven’t heard of it, they pitched the following:

“MATTER will focus on doing one thing, and doing it exceptionally well. Every week, we will publish a single piece of top-tier long-form journalism about big issues in technology and science. That means no cheap reviews, no snarky opinion pieces, no top ten lists. Just one unmissable story.”

They published their pitch, along with a video, and something incredible happened. They raised $50, 000 in just 38 hours, and are continuing to raise money now. At the time of writing, their total sits at $62, 869, and 28 days of collecting funds remain.

This success drives me towards the conclusion that if we give people the option to choose something better and asked to contribute financially, then people will reach for their wallets. We’ve all had enough bad digital news experiences, and I think it’s high time that we stared to explore creating good ones, like the one so many people can see in MATTER’s pitch.

If this is a trend that develops, we’ll see more digital news outlets spring up with a different philosophy. One where good journalism is celebrated, and given space, rather than drowned it advertising and gimmicks, and is supported by a community willing to pay to enjoy quality.

Image courtesy of Guillermo Esteves.