A platform for independent journalism that uses crowdfunding to pay writers, cutting out the need for advertising

“The news media is in a mess. Quality is in decline. The advertising-driven model is clearly in decline,” says Byline on its website. “We're a platform with no ideological bias, editorial stance, or style guide. Byline doesn't even own the content - the journalist retains copyright for everything he or she produces.”

Byline works in two ways: projects and columns. Projects work like Kickstarter campaigns; by raising larger sums of money up front for travel or investigative journalism. If a target is met, the journalist gets paid. Columns are designed to reward journalists for writing regular pieces (more like a salary). Readers commit to paying a small sum of money either per month or per article.

Byline poses the question, “why not forget about advertising altogether, unbundle the news, and just ask the reader to pay for what information they want?”

News platforms are coming in all shapes and sizes. Recently we’ve seen Coda Story dedicating time and slow journalism to individual crises while Clippetoffers sixty second audio summaries of the days best news. It’s still early days to say whether crowdsourcing the news will work but it’s interesting to see another medium turning its back on the advertising industry. Ello is an invite only, ad-free social network created by a small group of artists and designers, purely for people who hate ads.