A new nonprofit initiative is exploring a different way of funding professional journalism from the traditional professional media company. Spot.us will accept story proposals from anyone, journalists included, post some of those story ideas for public consideration and contribution, and then hire a journalist to research and write the stories that get a critical mass of financial support.

It's a journalism version of other crowd-funding efforts to rethink the marketplace -- much like The Point tries to do for social and civic action, or ArtistShare has been doing for recording projects.

The difference here is the retention of the editor in the mix. Where The Point and ArtistShare allow anyone to post their projects or ideas for public review, Spot.us keeps an editorial hand in the process, both by filtering and finalizing the selection of stories to be run and by editing the articles for accuracy and tone.

It's one more attempt to find a new balance between crowd and curator, between public and professional. Even though most nonprofit arts organizations are still on the sidelines in finding that balance, it's helpful to watch others make the attempt, especially since so many attempts will be required. Says journalism professor and project advisor Jay Rosen:

"The business model is broken.... We're at a point now where nobody actually knows where the money is going to come from for editorial goods in the future. My own feeling is that we need to try lots of things. Most of them won't work. You'll have a lot of failure. But we need to launch a lot of boats."

Substitute the phrase ''editorial goods'' with ''arts and cultural initiatives,'' and you get the gist of what's coming for us.

[ Thanks, John, for the link! ]