Assignment Editor
By Neil Dodds
26 July, 2006
A place where readers and journalists can collaborate. That's perhaps the short way to describe NewAssignment.net, Jay Rosen's innovative way of planning and funding stories that readers want, but the mainstream media has been unable to deliver.
Updated: See Assignment Zero, above.
The long way to describe the project is here, on Rosen's own Pressthink site. He calls it "a way to fund high-quality, original reporting, in any medium, through donations to a non-profit (organisation)."
"The site uses open source methods to develop good assignments and help bring them to completion; it employs professional journalists to carry the project home and set high standards so the work holds up. There are accountability and reputation systems built in that should make the system reliable. The betting is that (some) people will donate to works they can see are going to be great because the open source methods allow for that glimpse ahead."
Rosen believes readers will suggest stories to journalists via the site (which is still in the planning stages). Professional journalists, with the necessary qualifications, pick up and run with the lead, collaborating with readers to build the story as they do so. A third group, donors, fund the operation. It is hoped that readers interested enough in following a story through to its conclusion will pay - either a one off, or an annual subscription that can be allocated to favourite stories.
Finished pieces could be syndicated to clients or published on the New Assignment.net site, though Rosen stresses that the journalist working on the story would be paid already via donations or other funding. He writes of the importance of giving reporters financial freedom to pursue stories: "Where’s the money going to come from to support real reporting in this brave new media world we’re building?"
Part of the inspiration for the project came from freelance correspondent Chris Allbritton. Allbritton created a blog, Back To Iraq, where he raised money (a first tranche of $14,500 from 342 donors) to pay for independent coverage of the conflict there. "Original and honest reporting, free of commercial pressures, pack thinking and patriotic hype" was the selling point, and from March 2003 he had 23,000 users visiting his site. Rosen points to other journalists who have approached readers with a direct payment proposition and succeeded in finding funds to report independently. He believes readers might be interested in investigative reports on the pricing of drugs in the US, as an example, noting that a small donation to get a story together might be offset by the pressure brought on pharmaceutical companies by a story on their actions.
The project requires editors, too, who "decide when an assignment is far enough along to be packaged and sent out to seek its fortune. They set budgets; negotiate contracts; develop and nurture new writers; raise money for their special funds; cultivate a network of reliable supporters; find new patrons; participate with other editors in the approval of story ideas; “place” finished work with media outlets in syndicated fashion; and—much the most important thing—they uphold the site’s standards and practices. They also drum up excitement for the work they are doing by being visible, clued-in and articulate persons on the scene."
NewAssignment.net has already won $10,000 funding from Craig Newmark, of Craig's List, for an individual project. Newmark has declared an interest in promoting independent journalism projects, and we assume that NewAssignment is the first of many. Jeff Jarvis, who is working on an online news startup named Daylife, has also offered support, and hopes that Daylife and NewAssignment.net find ways to work together.
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