serial consign

Yesterday the beta version of Assignment Zero was launched by the journalist cognoscenti at newassignment.net. Assignment Zero will serve as a laboratory and testing ground for citizen journalism which they have re-branded as pro-amateur (pro-am) journalism. Assignment Zero will test crowdsourcing (distributed collaboration) as a means of facilitating journalism. This is a very exciting model which subverts the absolute authority of "recognized news sources" and could transform the news from a consumable stream of information into a participatory process. Imagine that, reporting as a democratic process, who'd of thunk it?

The need for "old-school" investigative journalism obviously isn't going anywhere, but considering the fact we now live in a milieu populated with entities like Judy Miller and Fox News perhaps some alternative modes of reporting on events and exploring culture should be allowed to the table.

It will be interesting to see how the press responds to this, I wonder if Assignment Zero will get as much coverage as the Reuters second life bureau?