This story is rife with Web 2.0 geek buzzwords. Open Source, crowdsourcing, citizen media, peer production, information commons, swarming…It’s a tale of an online project called AssignmentZero, the first collaborative journalism project from NewAssignment.net, which we wrote about last year when it was announced by its founder, NYU professor Jay Rosen, who wanted to create a platform for professional journalists to collaborate with “the people formerly known as the audience.” Rosen describes NewAssignment as: a non-profit site that tries to spark innovation in journalism by showing that open collaboration over the Internet among reporters, editors and large groups of users can produce high-quality work that serves the public interest, holds up under scrutiny, and builds trust. In April, AssignmentZero went public with its first assignment, a piece (tentatively slated for publication in Wired or at Wired.com) about crowdsourcing, created through crowdsourcing. Rosen calls it “pro-am” journalism, in which professionals and amateurs pool their intelligence to develop a story. At the AssignmentZero site, participants can create a login and find an assignment at the Assignment Desk. The editors have marked assignments that can be taken up by any number of people, and those (such as interviews) that can only be assigned… (more)
(Posted by Sarah Rich in Media at 12:08 PM)