CROWDFUNDING & CROWDSOURCING
FOR CONSTRUCTIVE INVESTIGATION
WONDERFULNEWS OF THE WORLD

Our platform is A NETWORK based on collaborative journalism in the public interest, pre-funded and pre-sourced by the readers. The readers’ community will inform and request CONSTRUCTIVE INVESTIGATION to Wonderful news of the world on public interest topics like Heath, Planet care, Social problems… For example, a reader wants to know why a lot of people in his village become suddenly sick. So he will become a source and could become a fundraiser to know more of this case.

When the story is pre-funded (crowdfunding) and pre-sourced (crowdsourcing) by the community of Wonderful news of the world, an editorial comitee will decide to mandate our journalists’ network to conduct investigations on various topics of public interest in Switzerland and outisde.

The report will then be available to the campaing’s subscribers or sold to other media. In the end of the process, all the reports will be solution-oriented. The community of readers of Wonderful news of the world will be activated to help to resolve the problem and offer solutions to society. They can create an association (crowdfunding) or take contact to NGO in charge of this kind of problem. So information will really be in the public interest, The reader will not only know but he can act.

Constructive journalism is a response to increasing tabloidization, infotainnment, sensationalism and negativity bias of the news media today. It is an approach that aims to provide audiences with a fair, accurate and contextualised picture of the world, without overemphasizing the negative and what is going wrong.

Once public awareness about a particular problem has been risen (our crowdsourcing plateform), constructive journalism may – when relevant and appropriate – spark debate about what can be done about this issue now? Who has tried to solve it? Who has done this better? The aim is not to aggravate problems or spark conflict, but to facilitate critical debate about possible solutions so that the issue can be moved forward.  (source: Constructive Institute, Denmark). Constructive investigation is solution-oriented and not overemphasizing the negative. To quote investigative journalist, Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post Watergate team: “Journalism is the best obtainable version of the truth”. The aim of constructive journalism is to provide its audiences with the best obtainable version of the truth, whether positive or negative.

Simply, the public interest is about what matters to everyone in society. It is about the common good, the general welfare and the security and well-being of everyone in the community we serve.

The public interest is not just what the readers, listeners or viewers want either as consumers or people who want to be entertained.

It is about issues which affect everyone, even if many of them are not aware of it or even if they don’t appear to care. The public interest is in having a safe, healthy and fully-functioning society. In a democracy, journalism plays a central role in that. It gives people the information they need to take part in the democratic process. That is why there is a public service ethic at the heart all of serious journalism. If journalists are good at their job, and to win the rust of the public they must hold governments and other institutions to account and they must act and behave ethically. (source: The Ethical Journalism Network).

Today infotainment is everywhere, just to sell more, a lot of editor in chief choose to overemphase the dark side of the society and the basic instincts of readers. Constructive journalist is a critical journalist but give the best obtainable version of the truth and not only the dark side of the news.

Constructive journalist can also seeks to facilitate public debate around possible solutions to important problems. Constructive journalism is not political activism. It believes in keeping a distance between journalism and politics. Journalist is not an activist but he can motivate activists with reporting. They can build concrete solutions for a better world and bring benefit for the society.

Our constructive journalism is based on the work of a great transformational wawe in journalist today (Transformational media initiative, World best news, Solutions Journalism Network, Constructive Institut) :

• a focus on progress, possibilities and solutions to the big challenges
• a critical but not negative approach
• adding perspective and looking at global trends – telling big stories through small examples
• showing people who take action, rather than being passive victims
• building relations with our readership by inspiring hope and belief that we can change the world