Stephen Leahy, International Environmental Journalist

News media are in serious decline — 31,000 journalists and editors lost their jobs in the past 2 years in the US. I’ve spoken to many freelance journalists around the world and hardly any are getting stories published now due to budget cuts – this includes the New York Times, Newsweek, the big UK papers. One top US freelancer attending an important conference sent story proposals to 15 publications he has previously written for and nothing.

There are crucial, future-shaping decisions to be be made but we are losing our ability to have an informed public.

We have to try something new, the old model of journalism and media is broken. A new model is called community supported journalism — people like you and me supporting original, investigative journalism on important and overlooked subjects.

How Community Supported Journalism works: [UNDER REVISION]

On a practical level supporting or funding individual story ideas isn’t working mainly because it takes too much time to put together and generate support. It’s not nimble enough to respond to breaking news, but it could work for larger, long term projects. Instead what’s needed is ‘bread and butter’ funding — contributions that help cover the everyday costs of living and doing environmental journalism. A ”Bread and Butter Environmental Journalism Support Fund” if you will. That fund will need about $15,000 in 2010 for the work to continue.

Please consider $50, $100 or more — less than cost of a newspaper or cable TV subscription — for coverage of important issues that shape our world and our future.

Contributions can be made safely and easily via PayPal or Credit Card. Or  contact me at writersteve [AT] gmail [DOT] com (no spaces) to send a cheque.

My continued appreciation to those who have contributed in the past.

Completed stories will be sent to supporters, available on my website and accessible to tens of thousands if not millions of people on other news websites such as IPS, Reuters AlertNet, TerraViva, Tierramerica, Common Dreams, InfoSud, Straightgoods.com and many more non-profit news networks that have little money for original journalism but many readers.

What matters is bringing these kinds of events and issues to the light of day and your contributions are now essential.

Current Article Proposals and Status

See Frequently Asked Questions for more (in preparation)