Media Watchdog Site Focused On Russia Starts Crowdfunding On Kickstarter

NEW YORK - March 10, 2015 - PRLog -- Russia Insider, a news site started by American and European Russia experts critical of media coverage of Russia, is launching a Kickstarter campaign (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/russia-insider/russia-insider-challenge-the-media-lets-push-back) on March 10, 2015.  A preliminary page (https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/22744-russia-insider-crowdfunding?locale=en) is available at Thunderclap, a crowdfunding promotion site.

Produced by a group of volunteers located around the world, the site was started in September 2014, and rapidly became very popular, receiving 15 million page views in 4 months.   The site is also active on social media – with a large Youtube channel, and Facebook and Twitter followings.

According to its founder, Charles Bausman, the idea of the site is to go beyond Russia coverage, to investigate how the media fails on a wide range of subjects, such as the NSA leaks, government whistleblowers, and US foreign policy in general.

“Ideally, media are supposed to challenge and question their governments, act as watchdogs”, says Bausman.  “Instead what we see is active promotion of government agendas and interests.”

The problem, Bausman argues, is that media is owned by too few individuals and companies, who are too close to their governments.  “It’s not just information about Russia which is being badly distorted, its true about the Middle East, financial markets, government corruption  - on many topics.”

Funded by Bausman and a handful of friends, none of them Russian, the site is largely produced by an enthusiastic group of volunteers from around the world.

A firm believer in transparency and openness, Bausman insists on making detailed traffic statistics public on the site.  He is also promising to make public detailed reporting on how the proceeds from crowdfunding are spent.  “We will only spend it on journalists salaries, period.”, claims Bausman.  “We want people to get the most bang for their buck.”

“We originally thought it would be just a small place for me and a few friends to sound off, but then all these people kept offering to help, and it grew into something much bigger.”

“We seem to have tapped into a lot of people out there who are unhappy with the news they are getting from traditional sources”

In addition to crowdfunding, Russia Insider is fundraising directly from investors.

“There’s so much more we can write about, great stories we can cover.  We pass on things every day for lack of resources.”, said Bausman.

The site features about 40 articles per day, many of them pointing out flaws in media coverage of Russia.  About half of its readers are in the US and Canada, and half in Europe.