An interesting find I thought I would pass along – Beacon!

Beacon, the Netflix for journalism, is a site where the public can access articles by personally funding their favorite writers. For $5 a month, readers can log on to www.beaconreader.com and decide what writers and stories get published instead of advertisers. Public relations professionals may be breathing a sigh of relief.

The writers on Beacon are all professionals and have written for publications such as The New York Times, Harpers, TIME, Vice, and The New Yorker. The majority of subscription fees go directly to the writer. When funding a writer, readers get access all of them, including the new writers that come on each month.

This new site comes from tech pros Adrian Sanders and Dmitri Cherniak, along with former Times writer Dan Fletcher. The main premises of Beacon is to be an avenue where journalists are empowered to write about their passions, not the number of page views.

I am fascinated by this model – after years of deadlines with reporters who are conflicted in their stories due to publication expectations or viewership, it is refreshing to see a site that will bring our writers’ true passions to life. I am also curious to see how well the site does with a $5 a month charge. Many readers today cringe over the idea of paying $.99 for content from the Times, will they be willing to pay $5 a month for Beacon? Only time will tell!