By Tom Turner Recently we funded an article that will be published in the Earth Island Journal (stay tuned). It was a very interesting piece to fundraise for this piece. What struck me was the single largest individual donation ($100) which came from a former student. The publishers’ comments are below followed by this donor. It is interesting to see the two comments next to each other and how all this “community journalism” stuff fits together!
From Earth Island Institute’s Editor.
Dear Spot.Us Members:
On behalf of everyone here at Earth Island Journal, many thanks for helping to fund our upcoming profile of Paul Ehrlich, “The Vindication of a Public Scholar.”
Tom Turner’s story about Ehrlich is an excellent piece of journalism. It reveals personal details about this public figure, like, for example, the rich intellectual partnership he has with his wife and frequent co-author, Anne. It digs deep and unflinchingly into a controversial political issue, in this case the debate about human population growth. And it takes complex themes and makes them accessible.
You, of course, helped make it possible. Spot.Us is an exciting innovation for news media. In an era in which the ranks of professional news-gatherers is shrinking, Spot.Us is helping reporters and news organizations to pay the bills. I’m very encouraged that this experiment in community journalism is working.
Gratefully,
Jason Mark
Editor
Earth Island Journal
From Spot.Us community member Garrett Sullivan
Posted by Spot. Us on 05/16/09“One of the reasons that I donated to this project is that Paul Ehrlich was a mentor of mine when I majored in Biology at Stanford in the 70’s. This somewhat after his fame for writing the population bomb. I was and remain deeply moved by his work to alert us to the dangers we face today. He has taken much heat for being on the leading edge of sounding the warnings, thus playing the role of Chicken Little. Yet, we are seeing and will see his warnings come true, just not as soon as he predicted.”
Hello Spot.Us Community Members!!!
As you probably found out via email our story profiling Paul Ehrlich has been fully funded. I am very excited. As I've learned about Paul I could tell he is nothing short of a game-changer in his field.
The Earth Island Institute editor has let me know that Tom's story is near completion and is going through a round of editing right now. They also sent a photographer to shoot a portrait of Paul and his wife Anne in Palo Alto. The magazine will go to the printer soon and the story will be available online or in the magazine in early June.
Once deadlines have passed and the dust settles the editor will write a note to us all which will be put on the pitche's blog (middle column): http://spot.us/pitches/135
Thank you again for your contributions and support. Without you - this story wouldn't be possible.
