One of the major advantages that we at the Franklin Center have pointed out about non-profit journalism is cost. Non-profit groups like Pro-Publica have financed expensive investigations that have graced the front pages of the New York Times Magazine, which could not afford the piece.

Well, it turns out that citizen journalism can also be done on the cheap, best exemplified by the pair responsible for bringing down the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN), James O’Keefe, 25 and Hannah Giles, 20. In the words of the Washington Post:

“O’Keefe and Giles secretly videoed ACORN workers in the District, Brooklyn and Baltimore as they coached the secret filmmakers on how to evade taxes and misrepresent the nature of their business enterprise to get into a home….

O’Keefe insists that he and Giles’s work was done independently and rejects liberal suggestions that the videos were bankrolled by conservative organizations.

According to O’Keefe’s account, ACORN was laid low by a stunt with a $1,300 budget, O’Keefe said. He and Giles rolled up and down Interstate 95 munching on Subway and Quiznos sandwiches between visits to the organization’s branch offices.

O’Keefe, who described himself as an investigative journalist with no formal training, said he bought his own $300 plane ticket to California to visit ACORN sites in Los Angeles, San Bernardino and San Diego.

‘We’ll be providing receipts, documented proof that this was an independent piece of journalism done by myself and Hannah Giles,’ he said.”