digg

Facebook Connect Join Digg About

Reporting on the Crowd, Using the Crowd as Reporters

wired.com — This is not just another wiki. Assignment Zero is a new kind of website, one of the first of its kind tailored specifically to supporting a distributed newsgathering team. Everyone contributes reporting and at in the end, some pieces will get published and a final news piece will be produced for Wired News.

Who dugg this? Made popular Mar 15, 2007

Digg DudeWhat is Digg?

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Digg surfaces the best stuff as submitted and voted on by the community. Take the Tour to learn more.

24 Comments

show profanity settings
expand all
  • DigiDave, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Disclaimer -- I've helped organize the site.

    It's a little different from Oh My News, which has many authors and many stories. This will have many authors and will produce one final story for Wired News. Along the way it will require smaller stories, yes. Those will also be published. But all those will be pieces of a larger puzzle. It's trying to create a community of citizen journalists who will all investigate one single story.

    For this to work, it will require the help of a lot of people. Some can donate 10 minutes, others can donate 10 hours. It's up to you.

    If anyone has questions they should feel free to contact me (it's not hard to find if you follow the links in my digg profile).
  • DigiDave, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5There is a related assignment on social news sites: http://zero.newassignment.net/topic/673

    Diggers can become reporters on... themselves. Yikes.
  • smhill, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5But it you are going to have bias no matter who reports. The potential advantage here is that you will get many biases at once. When an incident occurs quickly the people who witness it may all see different things or at least some people will see things others didn't.

    I think there is some potential here, but it will depend on how the editing and filtering occurs.
  • DigiDave, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5"1. News dries up quick. By the time there is a consensus, it's stale.
    2. Who determines the voice? Majority? That's not good.
    3. Who owns the content? I'm not going to take photos for free.
    4. Factions will form groups which will then attempt to skew, wipe or generate Astroturf.

    1.Magazines take 2+ months to put out -- this project is like producing a special magazine issue on the web
    2. Voice is determined by profesional journalists. This is a pro-am (profesional/amateur) collaboration.
    3. Everything is creative commons license.
    4. Fact checking -- one smart mob fact checks another. Might create astroturf, but if it's organized right -- it'll create sound reporting.
  • buellerdiggs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4be careful or they will headbutt you to death
  • buellerdiggs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Read the book All the Presidents Men (or download the movie on piratebay) it illustrates that news stories dont come from thin air, commonly they take months of development and interviews to do the story justice. This website seems like it will shed light on all that goes into reporting the news. I think they have professionals doing the editing and anyone can contribute, the bias will be in the hierarchy but i assume they will have editors in place to actually edit the crappy and skewed content. The interesting thing will be if they can create enough momentum to have regular contributors that become like navigators (not paid dont want any sellouts =) your name and nerd cred will be on the line I feel like most will do their best to help the project.

    All of the US's mainstream media is now owned by huge corporations where the bottom line is what matters not accuracy and accountability. One of the biggest problems we face today is that our media is lazy and cares about hits, viewership, and readership. In the US the press is supposed to act as our 4th check and balance of our gov, clearly over the last 6 years they failed starting with Bush v Gore. If this thing works it could really make a dent early and often the Mainstream wont be able to ignore no bid haliburton contracts and rigged evoting elections....well thats the best case scenario it depends on how well we all contribute and i know im too busy reading digg and visiting thehun all day to actually write something....
  • DrScott, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Citizen Journalism is clearly the way to go in the future.
  • funkytaco, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Is Wired trying to get sued?
  • monergism, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Few problems.

    1. News dries up quick. By the time there is a consensus, it's stale.
    2. Who determines the voice? Majority? That's not good.
    3. Who owns the content? I'm not going to take photos for free.
    4. Factions will form groups which will then attempt to skew, wipe or generate Astroturf.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5***** france
  • buellerdiggs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1what is astroturf
  • idiotwithastick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think we've found a similarity between us and Soviet Russia...
  • Sturmur, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Well, if you are using the crowd as reporters of a certain event, it's definitely going to be very bias.

    Any little action by the police will be met by cries of police harassment.
  • jeezus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"sounds stupid and pointless"

    More to the point, what's in it for the citizen reporters? Money? Fame?

    I'd say this is just another attempt to exploit the masses to provide free content because it's "cool". Sure, Digg does it, Slashdot does it, but at least it feels like fun.

    This feels like work. More to the point, it feels like work that's legally dodgy, to boot. Nobody's mentioned liability issues, such as libel. Will Wired extend its legal umbrella over these citizen reporters? What happens when Joe Smith interviews Steve Jobs in a parking lot, gets Steve to say something horrendous (hypothetical example: "I know for a fact that top Microsoft execs stage orgies with goats") and writes it down?
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That self realization would be devastating, Maybe its time to venture out of Mom's basement to capture that news story
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"***** france"

    Couldn't have said it better myself
  • jmkiii, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Sounds tedious, France too.
  • alexhuyalegzz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Splendid! sweet!
  • HanSolo69, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4sounds stupid and pointless
  • npsg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Independent media is the coolest.
  • thailand1972, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Looking at the way the herd mentality works on the web, I have to agree with sturmur - I think this will make news items even more biased than they are already.

    I see a lot of hidden lobbying, shilling, FUD etc going on here. Of course, officially denied by any and all individuals who contributes to a story.
  • 7of7, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Isn't this the same concept as the Korean site O My News?
  • phpbug, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0wauUU! Cool Comment Sytem!!
  • ripiv, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1May not be legal in France.....

    http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=24718_France_Bans_Citizen_Journalists_from_Reporting_Violence&only

    http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/03/06/franceban/index.php

  • Add a Comment

    Login or register to comment!
    Or, sign-in super fast with your Facebook account ...


© Digg Inc. 2009 — Content created and posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain | Terms of Use Updated | Privacy Policy
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.