An Oregon news service has come up with an unusual way to help pay for a reporter’s trip to Iraq: It’s asking readers to donate money to the cause
Tim King, executive editor for the Salem News, is heading to Iraq later this month to spend up to six weeks embedded with Oregon National Guard troops.
In order to defray the high costs of such a trip, the agency is putting on a fundraising event March 9 at an Oregon winery, and also has links on its Web site for readers to donate through PayPal.
The site has taken a strongly populist approach in its funding appeals.
One article requesting donations is headlined “Making War Coverage a National Community Project,” while another reads: “If You Really Care About our Soldiers in Iraq.”
The Salem News also solicited and received donations for a previous reporting trip to Afghanistan.
King, a former Marine, reporter and photojournalist, sometimes takes an opinionated and irreverent angle on his articles.
One of his recent articles took on the often-told story of protestors spitting on veterans during the Vietnam War; King suggests that the spitters were government provocateurs.
– Will Crain/Newsdesk.org
Sources:
“Who really Spat on Veterans During the Vietnam War?”
Salem News, February 25, 2008
“If you Really Care About our Soldiers in Iraq”
Salem News, February 4, 2008
“Making War Coverage a National Community Project”
Salem News, February 24, 2008
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