A small group has been working on the vital foundations on which such a venture will rely if it is to be successful Governance, funding, and operational support are issues that need careful consideration because we are determined that,for journalism.org to open its digital door it has to be sustainable.

Over the past few months there have been a number of lessons learned. Some have been painful, but all have been constructive.

One of the painful lessons that I have learned is that journalism.org will be a time-consuming venture and one that will require more time than I will be able to devote to it. I have come to the conclusion that the need to support my family through freelance journalism and commentary will not leave sufficient time for me to continue to take the lead role in journalism.org during its formative stage. When there is sufficient funding available for me to take on a professional role within journalism.org I will be able to reduce the amount of paid time I need to spend on other activities.

This decision also flows from another lesson: We will have to fight for funding in an economic environment where philanthropy is less evident than in more prosperous times and where we need to be wary of the difference between verbal commitments to donate and actually putting a hand in one’s pocket. Building the essential substantial operating fund will take more time than I earlier envisaged

Therefore, I have decided that to ensure we get this right our first phase will continue to be a collective effort to develop the model on which journalism.org will operate. The small voluntary team that has already been working on a trust deed, operational structure and funding model will continue to develop the framework for the organization.

When that work is completed and we are satisfied that we have the governance, funding and foundation personnel to ensure that journalism.org is a sustainable long-term venture that can deliver on its mission to promote public interest jinvestigative journalism we will push the start button.

I’m sure you will agree that this venture is too important to allow it to start too soon, falter and die. When it starts, it must be seen as a success and that will only happen if we have done our homework.

So, we are asking you to be patient for a little longer. We undertake to keep you updated on our progress toward that start date.

Here’s our initial thinking on membership tiers and offerings. Your thoughts? Comments below or emails to me at bernard.hickey@journalism.org.nz.

Again, please don’t jump too hard and often on these. They’re suggestions and aren’t written in stone. We don’t have all the answers and we’ll be guided by our members.

We’re suggesting three tiers of membership, all with yearly and monthly payment options by credit card. We want to know your thoughts on the benefits of each and how much you would be happy to pay for this sort of service to society.

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The segment broadcast on Sunday August 19 starts at the 22 minute mark.

Here’s the audio.

One point of clarification. Jeremy mentions at the end of the segment that I’m the founder of Interest.co.nz, which isn’t strictly true. I joined David Chaston, the founder and owner of Interest.co.nz, in January 2008 as its managing editor. I’ve been an employee since then.

Interest.co.nz started as an interest rate comparison site around 1999, but began publishing news and commentary and hosting debate after I joined in 2008. That’s when it became more publicly known, but it had been around before that.

I leave as an employee on November 1, but will continue to contribute to Interest.co.nz as a freelancer while we build up Journalism.org.nz.

Journalism.org.nz – Intro Video from Bernard Hickey on Vimeo.

Journalism.org.nz is a not-for-profit trust dedicated to supporting and building public interest news, analysis, comment and debate.

We aim to gather a group of supporters able to fund, build and flesh out a community of journalists and the platform they need to report, analyse and publish the news that matters. That means investigative, probing, enterprising and explanatory journalism, rather than celebrity-driven churnalism and PR.

New Zealand needs a strong and vibrant fourth estate that challenges, probes, questions and holds to account those people, institutions and forces that affect the lives of all New Zealanders.

A new and in many ways exciting era for the fourth estate has just begun. Join us.

The traditional venues and business models underpinning journalism are being dismantled and recreated. The ‘rivers of gold’ of display and classified advertising that once subsidised the reporting of news in newspapers and magazines and on radio and television are being sucked out and squirted into the coffers of Internet companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Yahoo and TradeMe. None of these companies need to build news organisations to capture those advertising revenues.

As these advertising revenues leach away in tandem with readers and viewers, the news gathering resources deployed by these traditional outlets are being gutted and restructured to focus on high sugar/low protein news. That means more entertainment, crime, sport and human interest news, and less news about government, education, health, the economy, business, the environment and social welfare.

Strong news organisations become weak and vulnerable to being taken over by special interests or simply limit their coverage to the high sugar/low protein news that sells and rates, but never truly satisfies.

The ultimate result is a hollowed out fourth estate with little investigative, accountability and enterprise journalism. It becomes a vehicle for churnalism, celebrity journalism and the views of special interests.

This doesn’t sound exciting or appetising and it’s not.

But at the same time a new wave of journalism and debate is bubbling up from the grass roots, thanks to the now very low barriers to publish. The advent of blogging software, Facebook, Twitter, smartphones and iPads has put the power to publish in the hands of almost all citizens in New Zealand.

The opportunities for crowdsourcing of news, data, comment and analysis are enormous. The costs of launching a website and publicising it are the lowest in history.

That’s where a not-for-profit journalism site such as Journalism.org.nz comes in. A model is emerging in the United States, Europe and Australia where philanthropists seed the creation of such sites, which are then supported by memberships and donations.

Watch this space. We’ve only just begun.

Journalism.org.nz aims to launch at the end of 2012.

We’ll be raising funds, building a publishing platform and creating the right structure to sustainably create a platform for public interest journalism.

We’ll be looking for Editorial board members and setting our editorial policies.

We welcome your contributions, ideas and enthusiasm. Tweet me @bernardchickey or email bernard.hickey@journalism.org.nz or register for our email updates with the link at the top right of this site.