Exploration of Funding Models for Journalism
This is the 1st part of our Digital Democracy Day. Closed event for opinion leaders, decision makers and experts on democracy and blockchain.
Introduction
Ethereum has spawned many innovative, democratic methods and tools for public goods funding. These leverage inherent transparency, inclusivity and credible neutrality, and combine them with democratic and effective mechanisms like Quadratic Funding to improve the outcomes of public goods funding.
One of the areas where public goods funding could be drastically improved is funding media. The UN says, journalism is a public good.
The original paper on quadratic funding includes a chapter on media funding: “Governments and philanthropists interested in supporting high-quality news without exerting or being seen to exert undue influence over content could use QF to effectively match donations to news creators in much the way that they already match contributions to organizations like National Public Radio in the United States.”
The Croatian Journalists' Association is the leader in addressing many challenges faced by journalists and media like opposing restrictive laws and advocating for fair media funding. They tackle economic impacts, rising lawsuits against journalists, and changes in media ownership affecting content independence.
In these sessions we will take a look at how Ethereum could be used to address some of these issues. After introductory presentations, in a 90 min workshop, three groups will be formed to design a financing program for 3 unique usecases:
sustainable funding of independent media,
proactive funding of investigations,
retroactive funding of impactful journalism.
Schedule
9:00 - Intro & Getting to Know Each Other, Circle (25 min)
9:25 - Presentation: "Overview of Public Goods Funding Models in Web3" by Anamarija Begonja, General Magic (20 min)
9:50 - Presentation: “Decentralized Outcome Funding for Investigative Reporting” by Devansh Mehta, VoiceDeck (20 min)
10:15 - Break, coffee and snacks (15 min)
10:30 - Workshop: "Funding Media with Public Money" (90 min)
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