Your podcast discovery platform
Curious minds select the most fascinating podcasts from around the world. Discover hand-piqd audio recommendations on your favorite topics.
piqer for: Boom and bust Health and Sanity Global finds Doing Good
Danielle Batist is an experienced freelance journalist, founder of Journopreneur and co-founder of the Constructive Journalism Project. She lived and worked all around the globe and covered global and local stories of poverty, exclusion and injustice. Increasingly, she moved beyond ‘problem-reporting’ to include stories about the solutions she found. She witnessed the birth of the new nation of South Sudan and interviewed the Dalai Lama. She reported for Al Jazeera, BBC and the Guardian and regularly advises independent media organisations on innovation and sustainability. She loves bringing stories to the world and finding the appropriate platforms to do so. The transformation of traditional media fascinates rather than scares her. While both the medium and the message are changing, she believes the need for good storytelling remains.
Crowdfunding The Doctor: You Donate, We Operate
After having raised over 1.2 million euros in various journalism crowdfunding projects I've worked on, I’m convinced by its power to do good. So I was intrigued to see this longform article about crowdfunding healthcare in developing countries.
What I like about the story, and Mosaic pieces in general, is that it is in-depth and reported from on the ground. The journalist takes you right there where the action is, in this case Haiti. When I read the description of the service that was investigated, I did wonder what ethical considerations applied to the project:
“The Watsi site says over 20,000 donors, two-thirds from the US (followed by the UK, China, Canada, France and Australia), have given to over 10,000 patients and that '100% of your donation funds life-changing healthcare'. Operating costs and credit-card charges are covered by donations from about 15 rich people and foundations plus 'tips' from donors. Like any nonprofit, if donations stop, they can’t operate.”
The cold reality of that last line hits home throughout this article. It turns out that using tech platforms to crowdfund individual patients' operations works, but largely due to the personal approach that has been used by charities since Harvard professor Thomas Schelling invented the “identifiable victim effect”, where an “individual life” means more to us than “a statistical life”.
All in all, lots of food for thought.
