Assignment Zero

1. Open-Source Journalism: It's a Lot Tougher Than You Think

2. Creative Crowdwriting: The Open Book

3. Stock Waves: Citizen Photo Journalists Are Changing the Rules

4. Q&A: Your Assignment: Art

5. Design Within Reach: Architecture for Humanity Builds the Future of Housing

6. Q&A: The Experts at the Periphery

7. News the Crowd Can Use

8. Q&A: Exploring the Dark Side of Crowdsourcing

9. Forty Strangers in a Virtual Room Talk About Religion

10. Q&A: What Does Crowdsourcing Really Mean?

11. Q&A: Using Crowd Power for R&D

12. Q&A: Crowdsourcing Soccer in the U.K.

Editor's Note: This story is reprinted from Assignment Zero, an experiment in open-source, pro-am journalism produced in collaboration with Wired News. This week, we'll be republishing a selection of Assignment Zero stories on the topic of "crowdsourcing." All in all, Assignment Zero produced about 80 stories, essays and interviews about crowdsourcing; we'll reprint 12 of the best. The stories appear here exactly as Assignment Zero produced them. They have not been edited for facts or style.

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With additional reporting by Maurice Cardinal, Melissa Metzger, Robert William King, Francine Hardaway, and Neal G. Moore

Edited by Vivian Martin

In which a member of crowdsourced journalism's "working class" shares a ground-level view of the motivations, the frustrations, and the potential of this movement

It's true that crowdsourcing can bring new life to journalism: through replacement, with pro-am collaborations replacing coverage lost to newsroom cuts; through exploitation, with newspaper execs "harvesting" the wisdom of their community; or through bypass, with the "people formerly known as the audience" banding together to tackle investigations that – for varied reasons – the mainstream press is less eager to address.

But fundamentally, crowdsourced journalism's promise must be realized by the crowd; if a project doesn't suit the "users," it won't fly. So hearing from – and listening to – these users is key.

The most-heard voices on crowdsourced journalism come from those at the top: for Assignment Zero we've interviewed such leaders as NOLA.com's Jon Donley, the NorthWest Voice's Mary Lou Fulton* and NOWPUBLIC's Michael Tippett; evangelists Dan Gillmor and Jeff Jarvis; CPA-wielding TPM Cafe warrior Mrs. Panstreppon and Daily Kos leader-rallier SusanG.

As a common worker bee from within the "crowd," I offer a user's perspective – on how it's been to forage for information on these projects; on why and where we want to contribute; and on where crowdsourced journalism needs to go next.

Before Assignment Zero, I worked, or tried to work, on six crowdsourced journalism projects. They were of widely varying scope, and aren't composed of the usual suspects; in a sense, I've been laboring in crowdsourced journalism's "long tail." (These six projects are covered in a companion article.)

The results of my efforts were mixed. Some parts were rewarding: I enjoyed digging to uncover lobbyist connections to earmarked appropriations in the Earmarks Project, plus there's a certain satisfaction in publicly exposing stonewalling, and a different satisfaction in finally getting an answer.

But I contribute to crowdsourced journalism because I want my work to yield a high "social good" return, and by that metric, overall, the experience has been frustrating. With some of these projects I ended up with nothing to show for the time I put in – either from being unable to get or enter the data, or from not following through where I probably would have, had there been support. (Support is crucial: if not for my editor's encouragement at a bleak moment, you wouldn't be reading this now.) And in the projects where I did contribute, my work had no visible effect – because of no follow-up or no publicity, or because what I provided just wasn't very significant. All in all, I likely could have spent the time more productively at home on my own weblog.

In short: There was plenty of room for improvement.

So, why bother?

Answer: Because there is plenty of room for improvement. I did it, and will continue doing it, for the same reason that you keep going out on dates even though the first six guys didn't measure up – you know there's potential to the form, you want that potential to be realized, and you're pretty sure that, if you keep plugging away and you put the word out, in time that potential will blossom.

What does this blooming potential look like, from the contributors' perspective?

For some people – for most people – it'll take the form of the political activist crowdsourced journalism that goes on at sites like TPM Muckraker and Daily Kos; as SusanG noted, sometimes it'll be as "many eyes," poring over documents; other times as "many ears and voices," reaching out to our representatives, asking them questions, and bringing this information back to the hive; and still other times as "swarm journalism," attacking the varied pieces of a story in a ravening piranha horde.

This form of crowdsourced journalism has been wildly successful in attracting motivated contributors, and for good reason: it's easy to feel that what you're doing has value, when what you're doing is defending your country.

Others will gravitate toward a group endeavor with individual appeal, such as taking part in a project to question some of the web's most interesting people, as Assignment Zero's 80 interviews now show.

And for those of us who wish to shine the light more locally, I'd like to believe a third crowdsourcing model has yet to emerge: it would employ crowdsourcing's group strengths to help citizens tackle the watchdog journalism that cries to be done in their own communities. A support organization for geographically distributed local watchdogging, it would offer editorial services, reporting advice, training in analyzing budgets and the like, discussion with peers, access to tools, and a "home away from home" to showcase and critique the work. The projects could be coordinated, with each participant running the same analysis on their own city or town.

There's clearly a need for the reportorial product; as the NYC Indypendent's Chris Anderson said:

"I would like to see crowdsourcing reach deep down into the bowels of local city governments....[The suburbs] need good investigative journalism as much as anywhere else. More probably. There's a lot of corruption in those places, and the mainstream press is dropping the ball."Citizen journalist nonpareil Mrs. Panstreppon agrees:

"I think local crowdsourcing is an excellent idea.... We are suffering from a lack of news about local and state government because [the local paper] has been undergoing severe budget cuts...."And ordinary citizens agree too. Said the Arizona Star's Debbie Kornmiller:

"the people I hear from think the government is corrupt – local, national.... And where the criticism is, is that we don't do enough to uncover that corruption."To tackle this reporting, we'll need support services: without this support, citizen journalists up against entrenched power structures will likely end up at best nowhere, at worst toast. We'll need purely practical support, too; for example, those who don't share Mrs. P.'s accounting background could sorely use help interpreting financial documents.

This support doesn't yet exist. Current citizen journalism training sites like New Voices, NewsU, and the community news self-help portal Knight Citizen News Network don't cover watchdogging; they're designed for a different job. They give lessons in basic journalism – offering helpful tips on writing for a community web site, where a friendly community holds sway. Where citizen muckrakers need a one-on-one with Machiavelli, they offer Scouting merit badges.

"Real journalism consists of what someone doesn't want published, all the rest is public relations." – George Orwell

"Never, never, never let them intimidate you." – David Halberstam

"There ain't nothin' for testicular enhancement like having [a group] behind you." – anonymous friend

I want to report news, not PR. I want the powers that be to quiver at my approach, not the other way around. I want to cover the stories that won't be covered by a tame local press, but I know I'll get nowhere by going it alone; I need a network to teach me what I need, to support me in these efforts, to look at what I'm doing and tell me where I'm going wrong, to suggest angles worth pursuing.

Chris Anderson questioned whether citizen journalism that's not overtly political yields enough psychic reward to thrive:

"politics are a passion of the bloodstream, and the gut. These other things [good journalism, objective knowledge] are a little more...abstract maybe?"But truth can be a passion of the bloodstream and gut as well. A journalist once told me "[Investigative] reporting is like crack." He's right; I've tried it.

I want more.

But to go there, I need backup.