Newsvine Joins Assignment Zero

This is fantastic and kudos should go to the Newsvine team who have been at the forefront of the shift from day one! Thanks for helping to put a big piece of the puzzle out there, all of us. I have to say this quote made me laugh..

Not for pay (we're not at that stage yet...)

well duh, we know that :~)

This sounds really great.

I have been thinking of a way to bring collaboration into Newsvive - two or more people working on projects together - this is perfect.

As for the coordinator position, I nominate Killfile or Pamela Drew. They've both done extensive hard reporting on Newsvine.

Wow! I think the future is happening.

I put in my vote for Killfile and/or Pamela Drew!

Okay, I am now registered with Assignment Zero. I find no info on the New Newsvine Association. I visited the Editor and the Assignments Desk. Where else should I look?

Okay, I read the last paragraph of this article and think I now understand where we are headed. So what do I do now?

Wired will be free to pick and choose from that material and publish any portion of it, in print or online.

They will also be free to profit from it.

This actually sounds really interesting - it strikes me that with groups already active we have a lot of the division of labor taking care of itself. I'd be willing to bet that there's an active group of users centered around each of several major focal points we could address -

* Groups that have a strong collaborative dynamic could take a look at how large projects can be broken down into manageable chunks while still working towards a cohesive whole. I'm taking a (serious) look at you, Drollhouse.

* Groups with strong, explicit bias - ie atheists or conservatives or Green types - can take a moment to critically examine the dangers of self-reinforcing beliefs. I think it's a serious problem when we get the sort of cyber-balkanization going on where you only hear the voices of those that agree with you - well, we all know that there are a lot of places on the vine where we are all guilty of that.

* Groups like the aforementioned citizen journalists can take an honest look at how simple/complicated it is for any joe schmoe to make a few phone calls and learn about something. Also, I'd extend this to a few key users - Brian Ford and Benno Hansen in particular have lately jumped out at me as willing to go the extra mile to bring their readers an exclusive scoop with a personal touch.

* Niche groups can compare/contrast the role of folksonometric meta-groups to speciality magazines - what do you think, War Room? Artist Profiles? Newsvine:CNN :: your group: ??

* Newsvine Communty can take a look at how all the various people with all of their disparate (read: frequently violently opposed) perspectives can integrate into a single community. Newsvine is an organism, in spite of a LOT of internal conflict - how does that work? Can it be turned to our advantage?

Anyway that's my two cents. I'm happy to have a project and ya'll can count me in on this however it goes.

Amazing. This is great news. I can't wait to see what happens next.

Hi everyone. This is David Cohn, I'm an editor at Assignment Zero and I wanted to drop in. I'm really encouraged by the process through which you guys have already started nominating a liason. Very democratic, organized and effective. Can't wait till we can start dishing out assignments. Feel free to go to the Assignment Desk and browse topics that you'll want to investigate.

It will be interesting to see the results

I've been waiting for this announcement -- glad to see it come out. :)

(In the meantime, I've been holding off on my "month of citizen journalism" feature.)

So -- I guess -- let me know how the Citizen Journalism group can participate, and -- anyone would would like to participate under that banner -- raise your hand, say aye, contact me, etc.

I see that the Newsvine Blog has requested membership in my group. Did he mean to log out and log back in before doing so?

Oh -- and thanks for the tip of the hat, Mykola.

I'll pay it forward with a mention of Steve Watts and Stacy Malbon.

Okay, Calvin and All, I will try to keep my shirt on. Keep my horses in harness. Subdue my libido. Grit teeth till the Cows Come Home.

I will follow any leader as long as he/she takes me forward. I just hope you realize my motto is "lead or get out of my way."

To the Assignment Zero people logging in here with comments, welcome to Newsvine, Thanks for being here. Just tell me what I can do and I will do my best. At last I get to associate with someone who knows what an editor is. Now if I just had good software for typesetting.

To Newsvine Staff, let me know when we start selling advertising.

When we figure out more, I'll help anyway that I can.

Wow. Yes, please... do feel free to use the Citizen Journalist group in this effort as well.

Thanks for the heads-up, too, Calvin. ;)

Alright, this sub-thread is for a discussion of what administrative roles are needed for this project. Here are my suggestions:

1) Community Liason - the "official" figure who serves as Newsvine's public face, speaking for the community and working closely with the Assignment Zero folks. The traits this person will need are: ability to assess and understand the specific challenges of this inter-community collaboration, a diplomatic personality capable of working with all sorts of people, an intuitive understanding of the newsvine community (what we're capable of, how the different groups work, what kind of content newsvine generates, etc).

2) One or Two people to delegate responsibilities to various groups. This position(s) works with the community liason in unpacking the "box" of issues AssignmentZero is going to send newsvine, and then gets in touch with specific community members or group leaders who are best-suited to address the issues at hand. Necessary traits: organizational skills, people skills, a thorough knowledge of who does what in this community. You've got to hear a problem and have a name pop into your head of the person best equipped to address it. We're looking for people who spend a lot of time here.

3) Task leaders - people willing to accpt responsibility for specific tasks. Once we figure out exactly what kind of things newsvine is going to be expected to provide, and the specific challenges are broken down, we'll need a group of leaders to take charge of the various issues. Traits: strong understanding of a specific subject, ability to nag people to turn stuff in on deadline, willingness to pick up any slack generated by people not coming through with their projects.

4) Editor: Typical, run of the mill grammar-checker-and-phrase-polisher. All output from newsvine will pass through the capable hands of this editor on its way out the door. He or she is responsible for making sure that subjects and verbs agree, that there are no embarassing typos, etc. Trait: where are you grammar nazis?

5) Fact-Checker: This is crucial and may in fact be the theoretical lynchpin of the entire process. We need someone willing to track down every claim, confirm every source - it's very important that no unsubstantiated claims leave newsvine. The only difference between a citizen journalist and a blogger is credibility - I believe we need a fact-checker to establish that. We can flesh out the details of this position in greater depth later. Traits: must have good research skills, must understand the sorts of things that can be challenged so as to undermine the challenge by providing citations. We're looking for someone who really knows how to argue and who really hates to be wrong.

What do you think? this is all very off-the-top-of-my-head and I have a vague fear it's turning into a high school student council election type thing but we need these sorts of positions, I think. We have to create credibility. Add/remove/argue/beat me to death as you see fit.

Best thing I've heard or read in ages. This is fantabulous! I'll happily join the worker bees in any way I can. Day job demands dictate not much organizational or planning etc.

What an opportunity for Citizen Journalism. What an advert for crowdsourcing and social media. Newsvine - me thinks you've hit the jackpot with this one!

Bravo:-)

Re: money. Is that what that option is that says "earnings" or is that something else? Forgive the newbie question.

I think this project sounds fascinating. I'll try to figure out how to lend a hand.

This sounds amazing. I dig it, I'm down, I'm game, let's go!

This is exactly what I was hoping for, one umbrella that would pull in all the orphans, the center of America! To the People, For the People and By the People. This was the equasion that was missing in our Goverment. In Order to Form a More Perfect Union. The Goverment now has it balances.

I'm probably the only one on Newsvine that cares about this after going to NewAssignment.Net, but it was built with Drupal.

Wow.
This is very exciting.
You know my first thought about reading this

Newsvine is calling its contributors to join together in the first pro-am journalism project on the web. We're teaming up with

was, "What about Jay Rosen's project?"
I've been reading, promoting, linking to, etc. Jay Rosen's pieces for years, since he
and I crossed paths in Salon and other communities, and so I knew he
was doing a project.

What are the odds that I, a reporter-turned-media-critic who often cites
Rosen as a source, come to Newsvine a month ago because of the Wall
Street Journal piece, only to have Rosen and his project announced a month
later?
BTW, is Rosen a member here now?

As you can probably tell I'm very excited about this.
I'll help in any way I can - editing others' copy, giving advice to prospective
reporters, etc.
I probably won't have the time for straight news reporting but I can write and
post interviews, as I do with the authors I interview, or write opinion pieces.

Just tell me where I'm needed. I'm a member of both Citizen's Journalim and
Citizens Journalist but I'd be hard-pressed to tell you the difference.

* 1. We're going to take one big, moving story--the spread of crowdsourcing and peer production methods across wired society--and with your active assistance break it down into reportable parts. Some of these parts we already have. More of them is what we need.

Am I reading this right, that this will be the first topic we write about? Or that it's the only
topic, albeit a huge one?

The topic reminds me of Smart Mobs, both the excellent book by Howard Rheingold, another
mutual friend of Jay Rosen and I, and his blog on the topic. I know many who write for
that blog so if those contacts would help just let me know.

This is a fine thing! Newsvine has a great community and it's fantastic to see it going to work.