Net-Funded A-Bomb Article Offers High-Yield ROI

By Mark Frauenfelder at 11:58 am Thursday, Apr 6

Gareth Branwyn of Street Tech says:

Last week, we brought you a story about Josh Ellis, a Net journalist who was passing the virtual hat to do a story on Los Alamos/Trinity Test Site (which is only open to the public two times a year). Pay Josh's way and he offered to write a piece, take a butt-load of pics, and maybe shoot some vid. He got his target amount of platinum pieces and off he went.

The result is "Dark Miracle: Trinity, the Manhattan Project, and the Birth of the Atomic Age." We definitely got our money's worth. This is a really nice piece of writing, with some fascinating factoids about the bomb and the Cold War, and some lurid local color, namely in the form of Ed Grothus, a nuclear bomb engineer (retired and repentant) who now runs The Black Hole, a surplus store/nuclear junk shop (in a decommissioned Piggly-Wiggly). You've got to see the video of Ed giving Josh a little tour of the place. It's a riot (in a Dr. Strangelove sorta way).

I'd say this little experiment in Net-funded journalism was a roaring success. Where to now, Josh? I've got some extra whuffie in my account with your name on it.

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