I've been reading this blog over the last couple of months, which has been interesting in terms of getting a view of Iraq from the ground… but probably more interesting in terms of the possibilities of the web.
The basic history of Back To Iraq is this:
Last year, Chris Allbritton, a former AP and New York Daily News reporter, raised money from his blog readers to fund a reporting trip to Iraq. In a sense he was on the payroll of his readers to provide a unique perspective of events in Iraq during the invasion. A few months ago he returned to Iraq, again funded by readers of his blog… unfortunately he is also working for some news agencies at the moment so his entries are not as frequent as they used to be… but still, the idea of readers funding an 'independent' journalist is certainly an interesting one.