publish org
Credit: Image courtesy of Publish.org

"There is only one aim of Publish.org, and that is to support journalism around the world," said Sarah Hartley, co-founder and editorial director of Publish.org.

Hartley told Journalism.co.uk that the new platform, which is still under development, will be open for writers around the world to join.

"We will also be providing support to the community that invests in the work that helps with the publication and distribution of great pieces of journalism, and that enables journalists to work on the stories that they are passionate about."

The team's previous collaborative journalism platform, Contributoria, closed earlier this year, after having published 787 articles since its launch in January 2014.

It operated on a three-month production cycle – journalists would pitch a story for funding in the first month and once the money was raised, they would work with the community to write and edit the piece before its publication in the third month.

Unlike Contributoria, which operated under the umbrella of Guardian Media Group, Publish.org will be independently owned and funded, although Hartley pointed out that many of the lessons learned from 18 months of Contributoria will be reflected by the new initiative.

"There will be ways for people to submit work, to work collaboratively, to improve [the platform], to find new stories, new angles and distribute it to different areas."

"We are not a publication – so we are not launching a magazine or anything like that, but it is very much a platform to support journalists doing great journalism," said Hartley.

She added that all articles that will appear on Publish.org will be commissioned within the platform and the team will work closely with members of the site to produce the stories.

Publish.org has been built as a Community Interest Company (C.I.C), which means the majority of its profits must be reinvested into the community it serves.

"Because it is a C.I.C, it is different to perhaps a big media organisation, where they've got shareholders and dividends and things like that – it's about creating value for the community," Hartley said.

The platform will fund its activity by working with foundations that share the same goals, but it will also raise money from the community through crowdfunding campaigns and membership opportunities.

"We are not in the breaking news field, we are more into in-depth investigations, pieces that require time and effort to produce, the type of stories people are supportive of journalists doing, but that you perhaps don't see everywhere all the time.

"We learned a lot running Contributoria, and it is great to have the opportunity to think again about what we want to do differently – there will be different features and improvements to what we did before," Hartley said.

The team behind Publish.org haven't set an exact date for the launch of the platform, but they are currently working on developing the project and they encourage those who are interested to sign up to the newsletter for early access and to receive further updates.

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