“Indymedia”:http://www.indymedia.org/ and similar sites – created by unpaid, largely un-edited reporters – are one way in which the Internet is enabling alternative voices to be heard more widely, but this publishing model has its weaknesses. Because participants are unprofessional and unpaid, there tends to be more opinion venting and comments on existing coverage than original research. Also, the lack of editing means contributions can be ungrammatical, unreadable or even occaisionally “anti-semitic or racist rantings”:http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=44851. While many Indymedia sites have now started to hide or remove such postings, the problem is still bad enough that it is hindering the acceptance of Indymedia sites by the mainstream media and even “search engines”:http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/09/1639862_comment.php.
The New Standard wants to be a different kind of alternative media entity- one a lot closer to traditional news sources. It intends to pay its contributors to do real investigative research not just produce opinion pieces, and it will “charge its readers”:http://newstandardnews.net/promo/membership.cfm $4 to $10 a month when it launches in December.
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