In breaking news err… yesterday, NewAssignment.net has received a $100,000 grant from Reuters to hire an editor. NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen explains the project’s agenda:
The idea is to draw “smart crowds — groups of people configured to share intelligence”into collaboration at NewAssignment.Net and get stories done that way that aren’t getting done now. By pooling their intelligence and dividing up the work, a network of volunteer users can find things out that the larger public needs to know. I think that’s most likely to happen in collaboration with editors and reporters who are paid to meet deadlines, and to set a consistent standard. Which is the ‘pro-am’ part.
Rosen has already thought through and answered a lot of the immediate objections that might spring to mind (interest groups manipulating stories, sponsors balking at ‘inconvenient truths’ & local stories, volunteers will be nutjobs with an agenda).
Clever stuff. But … there’s a cute parallel here with the ongoing debate about roles of experts and citizen contributors in the proposed Citizendium projects. In some respect, NewAssignment sounds like a Citizendium for news.
What I think the difficulties experienced at Wikipedia and those at digg.com show us is that collective intelligence and wise crowds sound great. Really, I am a believer. But that they are very difficult to orchestrate. One difficulty with news that doesn’t appear in mainstream papers is that it’s often very contentious. What will motivate the unpaid contributors to NewAssignment, if it isn’t their own nutty agendas? If the editors refuse to follow the promptings of the crowd, because they’re all nuts, what will happen then?
The examples Rosen gives of editor bloggers developing a huge following only partly help explain what will happen:
Part of it is the example now being set by liberal journalist and blogger Josh Marshall. His Talking Points Memo blog is invaluable if you follow national politics; he’s widely read on Capital Hill. During the 2004 campaign he raised money for a trip to New Hampshire to hear and question the candidates. He told readers why he wanted to go, what he thought he could accomplish.
The essential transaction I’m counting on is right there. Users fund an act of journalism because they have confidence — a lot– in who’s doing it and why; the chances of getting something really good back seem pretty good.
So the editor needs to be a maven. S/he develops a cult of personality around what they do, strong enough to win the trust and support of large numbers of readers. NewAssignment editors will also have financial backing from sponsors and so won’t need to pass the cup around their readers.
Instead, the readers suggest topics for investigation, and help provide data. Presumably, the editors then use their discretion to choose the non-nutty options. So this is a news site that might cover the plight of illegal torrent sites one day, dental amalgam the next and Panda Baiting the day after. And at the same time, despite flipping from subject to subject, the editor is developing a cult following.
No. That wouldn’t work. You’d have a number of sites. Each of them would only investigate subjects around one quite narrow area, an area the editor is already passionate and knowledgeable about. Probably with an established audience. S/he would get tips and ideas from readers which would decide the topics within the subject that get written about.… Err sounds quite a lot like a blog network, eh.
NB: there are a huge number of alternative news sites already in operation. If you’re like me, you’ve only ever heard of a handful. Why? Well, I expect you haven’t got time or you don’t find them trustworthy.
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