While we're waiting for the red tape to clear, what should Public Eyes be doing?

We already have a membership owned investigative magazine in New Zealand: Consumer. Sadly, it's never really sold itself that way or push the idealistic side of its mission instead concentrating mainly on the straight consumerist aspect of what it does. Personally I'd be more likely to join if it made more of its watch dog role. Some of its financial investigations over the years have been really good. I hear that the current management has squandered a lot of the reserves that had been built up. The country's largest circulation monthly: the AA magazine is also membership owned. I once encouraged the then editor to write an article on the democratic nature of AA and his reply was it would be a very short article. I would belong but it's too much the gun lobby for the motor car for my tastes. I personally think membership owned publications offer the best alternative to the corporate model. But building up the numbers from scratch is incredibly hard. So I've come up with an alternative model which is a media outlet that is funded through a levy from democratically owned organisations: unions, NGOs, local bodies etc would all subscribe on a voluntary basis with a fee based on the number of members they represent. They could divert a fraction of their current propaganda budgets to paying for journalism about things that matter to their membership and then offer their members preferential access to the news service.

Last I checked, Consumer only allow members to access their publications, which is more 18th century journalism than 21st. AA "magazine" is a glorified newsletter full of glossy ads and fluff. No journalism there at all. The model you describe sounds a bit like how theDailyBlog is funded. I'm not sure how you come to the conclusion that it's easier to build than a member-owned cooperative though.

Couldn't agree more about the AA magazine. The point is it is published by an organisation that is owned by its members. So in theory at least the members could insist that the journalistic resource be spent on real journalism (there actually has been periods when there was quite good feature writing in it.) You're right that Consumer is behind a paywall. I'm not sure that I would call that an 18th century model. Counter Punch, Le Monde Diplo etc keep some material behind a paywall and depend on subs from progressives to keep them alive. The models of the future will be mixed...
I've set up a worker owned media company (City Voice) and have thought a lot about setting up membership owned ones. City Voice was incredibly popular and quite a few people were happy to pay a sustainer subscriber subscription but we were miles away from being able to survive of those. The adverts from the City Council encouraging civic engagement completely dwarfed the subs in terms of revenue. Yes the DailyBlog has some union support but it's not support for journalism it's support for thought pieces. I'd be keen to hear your experience of building mass membership owned organisations.

This is an interesting case of building a mass membership model: http://www.themediabriefing.com/video/de-correspondent-how-to-find-a-new-funding-model-for-digital-journalism

it's not support for journalism it's support for thought pieces.

There's certainly a lot of op-ed on TDB, but there's some good investigative journalism as well, especially by Frank Macskasy. The balance between the two is an editorial decision, it's not determined by where the funding is coming from. Although if the unions and other "progressive" civil society organisations who sponsor TDB told Bomber ongoing funding is contingent on moving the balance more towards journalism, I'm guessing that would happen.

I'd be keen to hear your experience of building mass membership owned organisations.

I was involved in setting up an ad-funded community newspaper in the late 90s (SMOG in the Inner City East of Ōtautahi), which was structured as an Inc. Soc. Then Indymedia.org.nz which, like the rest of the global Indymedia network, was run on the smell of an oily rag by an all-volunteer team. I co-managed a community-run internet cafe (Oblong in Welly) for a couple of years, which was funded by customers, but regulars could do volunteer work instead of paying. No formal structure, so not really owned by anyone, but unofficially kind of owned by whoever put their name on the least that year. I set up another Inc. Soc. to run Circulation (an annual circus workshop festival), which was effectively member-owned, with everyone who buys a ticket for the festival being a member for one year. I've served on the Board of NORML as Comms Officer. Also on the Council of Permaculture in NZ (a charitable Inc Soc) and I'm currently working for them as the web team coordinator for permculture.org.nz. It's fair to say I've spent a lot of my career on the bleeding edge, so I've got limited experience with what works, but a lot of experience with what doesn't ;)