If you're a frequent visitor to our publication, you'll eventually encounter a surprise: a pop-up page that asks you to make a tax-deductible donation to Health News Florida. If you say no, you can keep reading.
But we hope that the request makes readers think about how expensive it is to pay reporters to dig for the facts and explain what's going on accurately, in context -- to do the kind of work we created this news service to do.
We hope it will prompt them to whip out their plastic and click on the PayPal button.
The creator of the program is Press+ (pronounced Press-Plus). The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, one of our current funders through a matching-grant program, generously offered us the chance to install Press+ at no charge -- a savings of $2,500.
We have hopes that our readers will use it, to become "members" of the Health News Florida family.
As a laid-off newspaper editor once said: "We may not be able to save newspapers. But it ought to be possible to save journalism."
--Carol Gentry, Editor, can be reached at 727-410-3266 orby e-mail.
