Updated

As Craig Newmark, NewAssignment.Net co-funder, notes: “What’s different about this election is the role of the ‘net.”

Citizen journalists not only helped professionals cover the election — they created original content themselves.

In a strange twist of irony, The Daily Show may have been the first to report on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield’s resignation. In his Election Night blog, Michael Brendan Dougherty responsibly noted in his blog post the shakiness of his sourcing , but in the end it shared insight which turned out to be true. Even funny news (“Suck it, Drudge!”) can be reliable news.

In a large national moment like an election, it’s impossible to cover every local twist. And as past elections have shown (and this one too), every state needs close monitoring. Placebloggers have the potential to create hyper-local and in-depth coverage of what matters to a community and in turn – the nation. And newspapers can get in the game too. Some outlets had the media provado to cover Chelsea Clinton’s voter woes, and others, like the Cincinnati Enquirer, created a tracking tool allowing average voters to publicize any problems they had. And this is one of many examples where newspapers have opened themselves up to citizen journalists. Even the New York Times is flirting with the idea now.

Lots of people have the desire to make journalism happen. And now more than ever there is a way in. The question is how to streamline the process. Bloggers gathering in groups, like in Springfield MO is one solution and Blognetnews scaled that process for entire entire states.

Spurring on amateur investigators, MoveOn.org has offered a 250K reward to anyone who can find material evidence leading to a felony conviction for voter fraud.

“If Election Day violations do not become headlines immediately, there is little chance they ever will. The mission of ProtectOurVotes.org is to highlight the most serious violations as soon as they are discovered and to place them immediately in context for journalists.”

In terms of election results — it seems the Democrats came out on top. And although our focus is in journalism, NewAssignment.Net posted ways that distributive networks can help governance too. What we are looking at after all is a means –- not an end.

The book isn’t closed on how the net changed this election. Technology is a running theme in how politicians campaigned, how we voted, and how citizens covered the election itself. We’ll keep you informed as things develop.