New Matilda’s failure to secure the complete $175,000 through FundBreak without resorting to acquiring a loan to ensure its continued existence does not illustrate the demise of independent journalism. It only highlights its bright future.

New Matilda was bought by its editor Marni Cordell after the business’ curtains closed for the first time in June. Cordell sought to continue the publication by raising funds through the new online enterprise FundBreak. The catch of FundBreak is that if you don’t reach your target, you get nothing. New Matilda had to take out a loan to make up the shortfall in funding to make sure it didn’t get nothing.

The other catch of FundBreak is that it is not recognised as a deductible gift recipient by the ATO so there are no tax incentives for supporters to donate their hard earned cash. This possibly contributed to why New Matilda had trouble raising funds.

New Matilda itself is also not endorsed as a DGR. Despite New Matilda claiming it would adapt a business model similar to ‘a public radio station’ it remains a private business with an ownership structure more in common with the old Murdoch owned News Ltd than the Sydney community radio station FBi. New Matilda was therefore not beholden to the various checks and balances that are required of the not-for-profit organisations like FBi that have DGR endorsed funds.

Despite this New Matilda still provides a valuable location for the publication for quality independent and alternative journalism. Quality independent journalism however does not need another location for publication. Quality journalism needs quality journalists, and quality journalists need quality pay. The FundBreak model therefore should not be used for the establishment of another media/publishing business but rather for the funding of individual journalistic projects and investigations.

Journalists should go directly to places like FundBreak or the similar sites such as Kickstarter to fund their projects and investigations rather than go through the middle man of a publisher. Publishers were once required because of the huge costs of printing presses and distribution, but blogs are free, and if a journalist’s product is of a high quality it could easily be sold to the old established media outlets that would have been initially too timid to take the risk of funding the initial investigation.

Journalists therefore need to adopt practices that artists have already been using. Hunting funds to produce projects that may be exhibited and then hopefully sold. Emerging artists don’t wait for galleries to hire them and pay them to produce ‘content’ to be sold.

The art world already had a model similar to FundBreak that provides a platform for the funding of individual projects. It is called the Australian Cultural Fund and is managed by the Australia Business Arts Foundation. Admittedly the way it works could do with a Web 2.0 update.

The benefit of the Australia Cultural Fund is that it allows philanthropists to get tax breaks when they donate to artists and arts organisations that are not necessarily listed as deductible gift recipients by the tax department. This encourages larger philanthropic foundations to directly support individual projects, whereas the crowd sourcing model of FundBreak will probably fail to garner such support because of the absence of DGR status.

If the Australia Cultural Fund broadened to include journalism and adapted the exciting ‘all or nothing’ model that makes Kickstarter and FundBreak so successful, real independent journalism could thrive, not beholden to any publishers or owners. Although to completely escape any influence, it would be necessary to keep all financial donations ‘anonymous’, and I doubt most financial supporters would want to keep their good deeds quiet. They usually require a plaque.

So if independent or ‘indie’ journalists started acting like artists and fundraised for individual journalistic projects and investigations, rather than bemoaning the death of newspapers, journalism in Australia could thrive. Indie musicians aren’t crying about the record companies, so stop crying about the media companies.

The future lies in the creation of more individual quality content, not the creation of more content providers.