Healthcare for Citizen Journalists

Today Allvoices was proud to announce it is offering health care as a benefit to its community of contributors.  We believe health care is a basic human right, even though it is still dependent upon a less-than-perfect system which keeps it from those in our society who are most in need.  Many within that group are recently un- or under-employed journalists.  These are talented people who have a valuable, necessary skill to contribute but can’t because of consolidation within the media industry.

Great journalism shouldn’t suffer because journalists can’t support themselves or their dependents, and health care is every bit as important as salary in providing journalists with the security they need to do great work.  Allvoices is fortunate to have a thriving and growing community large enough to provide the scale needed to keep health care costs down.  Right now the size of our community means we can add these benefits to our incentive plan which already financially rewards our most active contributors.  And, anyone within the Allvoices community is eligible, provided they meet basic criteria for participation on the site.

As excited as we are to offer health care, we’re looking forward to increasing our benefits.  We see this as a small and very necessary step toward changing the future of journalism as we know it.  The plan we now have in place is a great start for a citizen media site, but we’re cognizant of what else is needed; additional benefits will be introduced over time as we continue to grow.  For a while we’ve been soliciting feedback from our community on other benefits they’d like to see in return for their work, and we intend on delivering.  We’re committed to providing an environment where people can not just augment their living by writing for Allvoices, but can make their living here if they so choose.

Anyone interested in sharing their stories, building an audience and creating a name for themselves with help from our platform is welcome to participate in our program.  It’s our hope that by providing this additional measure of security, citizen and professional journalists alike will be free to do their best work, unencumbered by worries over the cost of keeping themselves or their families healthy.

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