As news organisations make cutbacks, photojournalists, many of whom are freelancers, have been struggling to find enough commissions. Co-founded by Tina Ahrens, a photo editor and consultant, Karim Ben Khelifa, a photojournalist and Fanuel Dewever, a business consultant, Emphas.is is seeking a new funding model for photojournalism, an often costly and time-consuming trade.

Ben Khelifa explained to the Editors Weblog that his inspiration for the initiative came when he was pitching an ambitious project that he wanted to carry out, but despite the fact that everybody he spoke to showed great interest in the project, he couldn't find funding. He had the realization that there was a serious demand for photojournalism, and that if media organisations weren't prepared to fund it, maybe the public would be. The public, rather than editors, would take on the role of information gatekeepers.

Crowd-funding for news has already been experimented with, the best-known example being Spot.Us, a start up based in California's Bay Area, founded by David Cohn with help from the Knight Foundation. Ben Khelifa only discovered Spot.Us after he started researching for his project, however.

Photojournalists will make their pitches to Emphas.is, often in the form of a video, and a reviewing committee will decide whether or not to accept these, based on their viability. A cost will be set - Khelifa said he anticipates $5000 as an average- and the pitches will be put on the Emphas.is site. The public can then view these, and if they choose to contribute a minimum of $10, they will be invited into a private community where they can communicate with the journalist.

Photojournalists will commit to supplying their community with updates and information about their project. These could be photography tips, travel anecdotes, stories about the people concerned in the project, or the journalist's take on the issue covered. There will be no requirement with regards to the frequency of updates, but Ben Khelifa said it would be in the journalist's interest to cultivate his or her community, as they would then be more likely to contribute to future pitches.

This opportunity to express their opinion could prompt wider use of the site, even by photojournalists who still managed to get hired directly by agencies, Ben Khelifa believes, as usually the photojournalist does not get to offer sufficient insight to the audience on the stories he or she covers.

Once the project is completed, it is made accessible to the private community that funded it a few days before it is published on the main Emphas.is site. The copyright belongs to the photographer, and he or she can sell the pictures to agencies or publications. It would be possible for a publication to step in at an early stage and fund half a pitch, for example.

Journalists could also take a slightly different approach and try to raise funding to put together a book or an exhibition, Ben Khelifa said. If it is necessary to take another journalist on a project to cover the story in writing, that could be part of the pitch.

Emphas.is has been endorsed by major photo agencies and magazines, and lists on its site photographer editors at Time and Newsweek, directors at agencies such as Noor and Geo, and a handful of award-winning photographers as supporters. Ben Khelifa stressed that the industry was behind him and his team on this initiative, and this support significantly increases the legitimacy of the project, he believes.

Emphas.is will launch in January 2011, with several projects open to contributions.

Will it work?

Emphas.is' appeal seems to be somewhat niche, but Ben Khelifa sees three markets to target: those who care about photojournalism, those who care about the issues which the projects will cover, and those who want to learn about photography. He intends to work with NGOs to market the service, asking organisations that work in the same area or in the same field as a project to publicise the initiative to their communities.

The social, interactive element of Emphas.is definitely has the potential to make it more attractive than simply funding a project. If the journalists involved are committed and pro-active enough, they will be able to make their contributors feel truly valued and part of the process.

This way of working creates a completely different relationship between journalists and their audience. Working for a group of individuals rather than a faceless organisation means that the reporters may well feel more of a sense of responsibility, especially if they do embark upon dialogues with their contributors.

Could crowd-funding become more widely used in new production?

Ben Khelifa thinks it could. "I think we can show the media that there are other ways," he said. For a publication, having the possibility to buy the copyright for a piece of reporting rather than to fund the expenses of obtaining it, is undoubtedly a benefit.

The crowd-funding model of Spot.Us has attracted a considerable amount of media attention. It is being used by an Italian site, which has called its initiative Spot Us Italia, and an Australian site called YouCommNews. Another company called Kickstarter allows for a many different types of projects to be funded, including journalism.

Crowd-fundinf has its limitations, such as fears that special interests will try to influence the reporting process, but if enough people are involved in funding and the journalists themselves put forward the pitches, that should not be a problem. Another area of potential risk is the judgment with which the public assesses the pitches: might some pitches end up being neglected not because of their unsuitability but because of their lack of immediate appeal to a public which lacks an experienced editorial eye?

Putting the public in the role of gatekeeper of information is certainly an interesting experiment in democracy. Given the increasing role of the reader in both the editorial agenda (as the interest of readers in specific stories can now be easily evaluated and readers can now communicate easily with many reporters) and in the dissemination of news online (through various forms of social media), maybe it is a logical next step.