I was listening to NPR the other day. The Voice of San Diego was being featured for winning a major journalism award. The local news agency won the IRE, (Investigative Reporters, and Editors) prize for best on-line investigation. This is a "Big Deal." The Voice won for their investigation into the Southeastern Economic Development Corp. You may remember it was their report that prompted the Mayor to look into that agency. Eventually the Director, Carolyn Smith was fired for taking money from taxpayers. I remember other newspapers scurried to follow the Voice of San Diego lead.
I went to the site voiceofsandiego.org. Right from the start I got this feeling of committment. It starts with their mission statement. "To consistently deliver ground breaking investigative journalism for the San Diego region. To increase civic participation by giving citizens the knowledge, and in-depth analysis necessary to become advocates for good government and social progress."
The site has been around for about 5 years or so. The service is not anything new to our region, and other cities have online news sites that serve the public. The interesting thing is The Voice of San Diego has been consistenly delivering on their promise. While many newspapers across the country are reducing staff, or shutting down this kind of online service is growing. I feel this concept is working. If you go to the website you'll notice a prompt to hit if you want to donate money, and become a member. This is not their only source of income, but it is consumer driven. If people feel they're getting a good service, they'll pay for it.
Why not get more models like these for other segments of news coverage. Police investigations, Medical reporting, or investigations into finance, money, power. If you apply it to all formats, print, web, video, cable, and broadcast. We will see an evolution of journalim, one worth supporting, and consuming. Kudos to The Voice of San Diego
