Dear friends,

David Cohn here from Spot.us.

I am beside myself and ecstatic to let you know that we have successfully fundraised $2,500 that will be used to hire reporters who will fact-check the political advertisements for the upcoming SF election. WE DID IT!!!!

House cleaning: The content produced will most likely run at Newsdesk.org, Public-Press.org and blog.spot.us.

A quick and belated blog post to announce that  Spot Us, a nonprofit that will pioneer "community funded reporting," will be working with the Public Press to help finance local enterprise reporting here in San Francisco.

Spot Us has received a grant from the Knight Foundation to take it from idea-to-production mode ASAP. (read more)

I've spoken with Michael Stoll about the concept. Indeed, he has been instrumental in helping me conceive of ways to design the platform to best aid and abet local enterprise reporting.

If you go to the Web site (www.spot.us) you can leave your e-mail so that you will be informed when we launch. There you can also learn more about how the project will work.

I am available to discuss the details as well. Feel free to contact me. I am particularly keen to hear from local freelance reporters. My goal is to get you paid to do what you do best: report on important issues. Michael and I are very open to collaboration -- so it isn't an affront to the Public Press at all. In fact, as I see it, and I believe Michael feels the same, Spot Us is a tool that the Public Press can use.