On Assignment Zero

This is a joint project with Wired News. They’ve provided an editor, Lauren Sandler, and a writer, Jeff Howe. They will be joined by Steve Fox and Amanda Michel and myself [David Cohn] from NewAssignment.Net in this venture. But the team is larger. Much larger. It includes everyone and anyone who wants to join." NewAssignment.Net.

Today [March 14] Wired and Jay Rosen's NewAssignment.Net launched an ambitious research project that will use crowdsourcing to research, report and write about, well, crowdsourcing, in all its manifestations. It's called Assignment Zero, so named because we consider it ground zero for a new, hyrbid model of open source-slash-citizen media that we're calling Pro-Am journalism. The idea is to hook a team of professional editors and writers up with what we hope will be a vast team of talented, enthusiastic amateurs. Our goal is to bring the best of both worlds—the professional standards and respect for factual accuracy of the MSM on one hand; the infinite reservoir of knowledge and reporting power of the crowd—to bear. Snippet from Crowdsourcing

The Second Life Journalism assignment.

Technorati Tags: innovation, crowdsourcing, Pro-Am journalism