There's a cool service started by a Berkeley journalism student called Reporterist, where freelancers can pitch stories and connect with editors and various publications. It's a really innovative way to make the process more efficient, although the Online Journalism Review points out a couple problems:
1. Stealing ideas
When you sign up and put your portfolio online and begin to pitch stories, there is nothing stopping the publications from taking your ideas. This probably already happens, to some extent. However, this service would just offer more ideas to take.
2. Bidding wars
Technically, the site is not set up to have this option, and the two people who started Reporterist took issue with the fact that the Online Journalism Review pegged it as an "eBay for news." However, I can see how this could potentially happen. If a piece of writing is good enough, it might go to the highest bidder rather than the first publication who picks it up.
3. Credibility - Anyone can sign up. Freelancers are trying to sell a product, but you never know who's on the receiving end. The one thing that could prevent this is that it's a service you have to pay for.
4. Design gripe
I, personally, hate the way the site is designed. Instead of being able to click through all the portfolios
(and right now they're mostly Berkeley grad students), you have to constantly refresh to get a new one. The layout seemed primitive. Could be that the paid version is better. I'm not willing to find out, at this point.
Good idea? Bad idea? I'm leaning toward good in an innovative way.
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