Tag Archives: Lyra McKee

Fund an investigative project – and get analytics for free?

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Lyra McKee is a brave young woman. Not (just) because of her investigation into the murder of a Northern Ireland politician – but because of her decision this week to offer supporters access to the metrics behind it.

Many journalists would find such an idea terrifying: telling everyone how many people are reading my work? Sharing it? Finishing it? There’s simply too much to lose. “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”

But crowdfunding creates a different dynamic. When I backed SA Mathieson‘s project on Beacon, I wasn’t buying content: I was supporting something I believed in. I was supporting a writer to spend time on one topic.

Notably, Beacon’s own strategy acknowledges this: there is no way to subscribe to the ‘brand’ of Beacon – to get access to all content you must support one specific project. Continue reading →

Lyra McKee: why more journalists are going direct to readers

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Lyra looked to crowdfunding when writing a book on the murder of the Reverend Robert Bradford

Lyra looked to crowdfunding when writing a book on the murder of the Reverend Robert Bradford

Lyra McKee* is an investigative journalist in Northern Ireland. In this post, originally published on The Muckraker, she explains why she feels journalists are turning away from traditional outlets in favour of building their own brands while exploring crowdfunding and micropublishing.

When I talk to older journalists (older being over the age of 30), they ask me the same question: who do you write for?

It’s an awkward question. If it was 2009, I’d tell them I’d been published in (or had pieces broadcast on) the Belfast Telegraph, Private Eye, BBC, Sky News – a dozen or so news outlets that took my work back then.

In 2013 the answer is: none.

I’m part of a generation of “digital native” journalists who sell their work directly to readers, bypassing traditional news outlets like newspapers and broadcasters. Increasingly, reporters are using services like Beacon, Kickstarter and Woopie to raise funds directly from their readers and publish their work.

Why are they doing this? Continue reading →

Online security for journalists: never assume you’re secure

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image from xkcd

image from xkcd

With news last week of the New York Times and Washington Post being hacked recently, The Muckraker‘s Lyra McKee looks at internet security.

“They were able to hack into the computer and remotely access my Facebook account, printing out a transcript of a private conversation. Then they told me who I’d been talking to over the past week and who was on my contacts list. They’d hacked into my phone. When they first told me they could hack into computers and phones, I didn’t believe them. So they showed me.”

I was sitting at the kitchen table of one of Northern Ireland’s few investigative journalists. He was shaken.

In thirty years of reporting, Colin (not his real name) has seen things that would leave the average person traumatized. A confidante of IRA terrorists, he has shaken hands with assassins and invited them into his home for a chat over a cup of tea – as he had done with me that night.

A few weeks previous, during one visit from a source, the subject of hacking had come up. Continue reading →