Berkeley J-school student Sindya Bhanoo and her computer engineer husband, Hemant, have launched a website to connect freelance reporters and writers with magazine and newspaper editors. The system generally works like this: freelancers upload stories and/or story ideas to the website; editors peruse the site for stories from the specific region or subject they cover; editors buy the stories, and electronic payment goes to the writer immediately (with 10 percent going to the site).
Bhanoo hopes her site, reporterist.com, can eventually compete with news wires like the Associated Press and Reuters. "Our larger vision is that it's the next generation wire service," she said. "Most of the editors we spoke to say they're relying too much on AP or Reuters content. At Reporterist, they will be able to look at all these stories and sort them by region or topic. Our vision is to be a wire service for local, topical news."
That's all well and good, but what was wrong with the old system: write a story, pitch it to a magazine, wait two weeks for the editor to email you back, reply to their email asking about rates, wait two more weeks to hear back, finally settle on a price, get the story published, wait to get paid, wait to get paid, wait to get paid, wait to get paid...
What If There Were An eBay for News?
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