APM acquires Spot.Us, will merge it with Public Insight Network

American Public Media has acquired community news funding website Spot.Us, and will incorporate it into the Public Insight Network (PIN), APM announced today (Nov. 29). Spot.Us and PIN each "believe in the power of the independent voice in journalism," said Joaquin Alvarado, senior vice president of digital innovation at APM. Spot.Us, founded in 2008 with a seed grant from the Knight Foundation's Knight News Challenge, lets the public fund journalism that is then distributed by newsrooms nationwide; PIN provides journalists with more than 130,000 self-identified news sources through its unique database.