1. Advertising is SO 20th century.
2. Both going directly to people vs. going to advertisers bring in the money. But one focuses on what people actually want (this is a good thing, by the way) and one focuses on having other people tell us what we want (this is a BAD thing, by the way).

By ’sticking with protocol’ in order to keep things simple, you’d be missing the whole point of new media.

Is this the answer? It is one, for sure. I would like to see an open source bidding war between different political viewpoints, with reporters sent to report back to their respective mobs. That could be interesting.

I do know that with all the filtering going on, it is good to shake it loose and see what happens.

I love the process notion here. Story ‘Ideas’ (Public) –> Review & Approve (Public) –> Journalist Selection (Public - via resume & past ratings) –> Assignment Review & Approve (Editor, a.k.a. webmaster responsible for any content posted) –> Publication (with sponsored text only banner ads) –> Reader Comments & Rating Submission (Public).

I would love to see a bibliography of all resources used in the creation of the article. Enough of hiding your ’sources’. Leads to corrupted journalism.

I can see how established journalists could benefit from this kind of idea - even today. Imagine Greg Palasts says “I’m on a story, no one will touch it - sponsor me $10,000 and you’ll get your namecheck in my next book AND the satisfaction of stiffing it to a bad guy” Thousand people put up ten apiece - I can see that working. But for new and unknowns? Different proposition.

Something that hasn’t been dealt with though is the range of topics. Often times, when people complain that a topic isn’t being covered correctly or from all sides, its usually with a personal slant or agenda. How will that be handled and minimized (and should it?). While its known that publications have bias, there is an attempt to hide or shield it (can debate on the levels of success). With such an idea as this, bia may become the biggest problem to overcome.

What will prevent the site’s content from coming from a chosen few? As recent stories with netscape attempting to buy off some of digg.com providers show, sometimes the content of a site is made up of a core few rather then a large group of mixed interests.

Above someone suggested eliminating the professional editors. Interesting idea but doesn’t that risk the site just becoming a news version of wikipedia or a heated forum post with back and forth among the heated interested about the topic, rather then the sharing of news? That level of autonomy would probably make for very interesting results but mostly seems more like a possible mistake.

Finally, what parts of the school of journalism will be applied to the average citizen reporter and how much will not? What would seperate rumors, speculation from facts? What level of transparency would be expected? The biggest complaints about journalism today is the loss of honesty and trust. What steps would be made to prevent a repeat of the mainstream medias mistakes?

I am not knocking the idea, just sharing random concerns that came up. If the editing and whatnot isn’t handled carefully, the site could become more of a series of like minded bloggers and less of a site about news events worth knowing about.

First, “The devil/god is in the details.”

Which is to say that it will work or fail based on how it is setup to work and who is involved. There is a lot of faith and trust implicite here. In most of the “old world” model of journalism, I would advocate for separating funding from editorial control. One thing that would make reversing that model work is if the funding is made transparent.

Second, “The only free press is the one you own.”

I think that the biggest thing that we have lost in the transition from private ownership of the news media to corporate ownership is that the passion has moved from making a point to making a profit. Look at Fox.

I’m with Brett on cutting as many middlemen out as possible. Can the community be the editors? Can we develop some kind of efficient process for that?

I also question Jay’s point about having “professional” journalists do the reporting. I’d personally like to see a mix of reporters, both “professionals” and “amateurs”. My guess is that the community will either respond to the person, or not. It has little to do with their title or background. If they trust the person, and that person is smart and engaging…that’ll be what counts. Let’s not just leave this to the “professionals”. If we do that, we’re missing the whole point.

A REMINDER:

An average of 100 Iraquis are dying everyday in a war that you were so happy to start. The 100 Iraquis being killed is equivalent to about a 1000 US citizens being killed as the population is 10 times as small as ours. 14000 Iraquis have died in this year which is equivalent to 140,000 US citizens. So why oh why have you stopped posting all the good news from Iraq the last few months?

Your first assignment should be to back up all the posts you made about all the good news in Iraq that the MSM is not covering. Come on put up or shut up. Show us the good news.

A reporter believes that perhaps there’s a hidden story out there - a conspiracy that’s covered up. He or she submits it, gets people to contribute. Nothing is found…no cover up, no conspiracy.

Now, the investors are pissed. Because they may have pissed their money away, their investment…or more importantly, because they think the reporter did a bad job…and may be now part of the conspiracy.

Because, in the end, I think most contributors will feel as if they are investors who’ve hired someone to get their side of their story out in the open.

So does that mean you don’t respect my view that NewAssignment is a joke?

Let’s see. Apparently “professional” news organizations are ignoring important stories. But they should only be “complemented”, not reformed or eliminated - and definitely not by market forces.

The great thing about the net is that in two years we can check back NewAssignment’s progress and see whether it surpassed the “contribution” level of my commentary.