Community-funded journalism?

As newspapers are laying off journalists to cope with new media realities and the global financial crisis, new ideas for media funding is emerging.

David Cohn, an American Web Journalist, have launched Spot.Us. The site is a hub where freelance journalists can pitch story ideas and readers can pitch in money to pay the journalists to report and write the story. Cohn calls the model "community-funded journalism. (Source: TechCrunch) This link tells you all you need to know about how Spot.Us is organised as to funding, editorial work, media law, etc.

Some interesting comments on the concept left by readers:

"Sounds good for an experiment, but doesn’t seem it will take off anytime soon. I still prefer my CNN news", "This is a great idea and I look forward to supporting it. Citizen Journalism is key to democracy" and "I don`t know whether this will work. It will probably sway either right or left wing, but hopefully there`ll be editors vetting it."

I don`t think this is the way forward, but I`ve got a feeling I might have to get used to this model.