Innovation in Journalism Goes Begging for Support
►http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/business/media/homicide-watch-web-site-venture-struggles-to-survive.html?_r=1&smid=pl-shar
Journalism has a shortage of many things: capital, advertisers and, in some instances, readers. But certainly its most precious commodity is innovation.
Again and again, the business struggles to get out of the rut that put it on a road to ruin in the first place. Consider the fate of the Web site Homicide Watch DC. When it popped up out of nowhere with a way of tracking every murder in Washington, it seemed likely that a big news organization would snap it up or that foundations would trip over themselves to shove money at them.
It hasn’t turned out that way. Two years after it began, Homicide Watch is on hiatus and its founders, Laura and Chris Amico, find themselves with the tin cup out on Kickstarter looking for money to sustain the site.