What is NewAssignment.Net?

New Assignment.Net is a non-profit site that tries to spark innovation in journalism by showing that open collaboration over the Internet among reporters, editors and large groups of users can produce high-quality work that serves the public interest, holds up under scrutiny, and builds trust.

A second aim is to figure out how to fund this work through a combination of online donations, micro-payments, traditional fundraising, syndication rights, sponsorships, advertising and any other method that does not compromise the site’s independence or reputation.

At New Assignment, pros and amateurs cooperate to produce work that neither could manage alone. The site uses open source methods to develop good assignments and help bring them to completion. It pays professional journalists to carry the project home and set high standards; they work closely with users who have something to contribute. The betting is that (some) people will donate to stories they can see are going to be great because the open methods allow for that glimpse ahead.

When will it debut?

Target date is April 1, 2007; that may shift. A proof-of-concept test is scheduled for the fall of 2006. Much depends on fundraising progress.

For whom is it intended?

New Assignment is for people who are interested in the news, online regularly and accustomed to informing themselves. It does stories the regular news media doesn’t do, can’t do, wouldn’t do, or already screwed up. And it allows for effective participation by users. The site gives out real assignments’ paid gigs with a chance to practice the craft of reporting at a high level. Because they’re getting paid, the journalists who contract with New Assignment have the time’and obligation’to do things well. That means working with the users who gave rise to the assignment.

How can I find out more?

Go to PressThink, Jay Rosen’s blog. (Bio.) He’s the one who thought it up. New Assignment’s official home is New York University’s Department of Journalism, where Rosen is on the faculty. The initial description is Introducing NewAssignment.Net (July 24, 2006.) At that post and the others that followed, you will find links to reactions around the Net— and of course a comment thread.

See also these follow-up posts, Some Problems with New Assignment.Net (July 28) and How Realistic is New Assignment.Net?(Aug. 11. ) Also Exploding By-Lines: Update on NewAssignment.Net (Aug. 27) and Editing Horizontally: Thanks to Reuters, NewAssignment.Net Can Hire Someone (Sep. 20.)

And for further background check into my interview with readers of Slashdot (Oct. 3) along with The People Formerly Known as the Audience (June 27) and Users-Know-More-than-We-Do Journalism (June 22).

How can I contribute?

You can comment here, and soon you will be able to donate in modest amounts online. NewAssignment.Net will be running it’s first test in Fall 2006, so watch this site for announcements. Donors interested in contributing $1,000 or more should contact Jay Rosen via e-mail. If you’re a blogger, you can of course write a post about it. That’s a contribution

What are they saying?

Lots. Here’s the Technorati search. And here are some of the initial reactions:
The Economist: “New online models will spring up as papers retreat. One non-profit group, NewAssignment.Net, plans to combine the work of amateurs and professionals to produce investigative stories on the internet.”
Craig Newmark of Craigslist.org at his blog. “Journalism’s evolving, and we’re seeing the convergence of professional journalism and citizen journalism.
Staci Kramer at paidContent.org. “A good example of how people at all levels are grappling with ways to turn the potential of community-based journalism into reality.”

Kevin Maney of USA Today. “A terrific experiment that should teach us something about where journalism is heading.”
Stephen Spruiell at National Review’s Media Blog: “If there’s a way to improve the press that’s better than the current tug-of-war over ‘objectivity,’ we could be seeing its beginnings.”
Nicholas Lemann in the New Yorker: “The key to the idea, in Rosen’s mind, is to give ‘people formerly known as the audience’ the assigning power previously reserved for editors.”
Mark Glaser at the PBS blog Media Shift. “Perhaps there’s a way to harness the power of the easy, powerful connections we can make online to do a new kind of investigative journalism.”
Amy Gahran at Poynter’s E-Media blog. “It’s intriguing.”
Scott Rosenberg of Salon. “Old-fashioned editorial processes mesh with newfangled feedback loops and reputation systems to produce something new and unique.”
Jeff Jarvis at Buzzmachine. “NewAssignment will not replace the work of professional news organizations. It will complement them, attacking the stories that are not being covered.”
Andrew Nachison at Morph. “Certainly the open process will be a novel flip of the traditional approach to journalism, which itself works in some cases and not in others.”
Aaron Barlow at Daily Kos: “We citizen journalists will be watching with interest.”
Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News. “Let’s face it, the current system of investigative reporting has broken down.”
Gal Beckerman at CJR Daily. “Let’s give it a whirl.”