Screen capture from Fringebacker.
This post was written by Karen Cheung and originally published on Hong Kong Free Press on August 18. It is republished on Global Voices under a content partnership agreement.
A new investigative journalism agency has raised over HK $3 million (approximately US $386,917 dollars) on crowdfunding platform Fringebacker.
“2040 Hong Kongers created this miracle together. Thank you Hong Kong!” Factwire stated on its Facebook page on Tuesday (August 18) afternoon.
On crowdfunding platform, Fringebacker, Factwire describes itself as Hong Kong’s first and foremost news agency specializing in investigative journalism. Its ambition is “to be the most trusted news organization in the world”.
“Hong Kong is one of the few places where information flows almost completely freely. If Paris has Agence France-Presse, New York has the Associated Press, [and] London has Reuter, why [shouldn’t] Hong Kong have FactWire?” it asked.
The project was initiated by veteran local journalist Ng Hiu-tung, who has worked for various media outlets including Cable News and TVB. The campaign was launched on 30 June 2015 and still has ten days to go after it hit its HK$3 million target on Tuesday.
Last month, Factwire announced that it had broken records for online fundraising in Hong Kong, with over 800 people donating more than HK$1 million in just 24 days, “almost doubling the previous funding record held by Hong Kong Free Press which raised almost HK$600,000 on FringeBacker six weeks ago”.
