We’ve already gone on record as thinking Spot.Us, the crowdfunding startup that helps freelance, investigative reporters raise money for stories they’d like to work on, then helps them get the stories distributed to press outlets (usually using a creative commons license). Did you see the article on the bay bridge that was A1 on McSweeney’s SF Panorama? That was funded through Spot.Us. Yeah, it’s dope. We’ll, David Cohn, the founder has a pretty sweet idea on how to get brands to participate in the funding of these investigative stories. He blogs about it in depth on MediaShift, but below is an excerpt that breaks it down.

“Let’s use Levi Strauss purely as an example.

Perhaps Levi’s provides survey questions:

• What is your favorite cut of jeans?
• What is a memorable Levi’s moment you’ve had?
• You buy Levi’s jeans because… (multiple choice answer).

Or it can be a branded survey simply to get the customer to think more about Levi’s

• What year was Levi’s invented? (Multiple choice)
• Guess how much of material X Levi’s produces a year?

Or a quick video that people have to watch Hulu-style.

Upon engaging with the advertisement the Spot.Us community member earns X credits, which represent real dollars, and they can direct those credits toward funding the story (or stories) of their choice.”

Pretty smart idea. I’m curious to see what kinds of brands really want to engage with sponsoring investigative journalism, and whether there are any sort of ethical considerations. But it’s still really cool.