Open source journalism - what for?
Reuters has just given $100,000 to a new start-up that promises ‘Open-source journalism’. It’s called Newassignment.net, and it wants 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.
On one level, it sounds pretty much like what the media does already - readers have an essential role in guiding what media outlets cover, they suggest some of the very best stories, and sometimes tell them themselves.
But I’m intrigued about how it can develop stories in an ‘open source’ way. Most of the projects I work on are kept under wraps until they’re finished - you don’t want people to steal your ideas.
But what if you start out with assumptions that are completely wrong, perhaps even libellous? As you research them, they’ll be stood up or fall over, and the wrong bits will never be released into the world to cause damage or offense. But if it’s all open source, it will be public before it’s fact-checked or corrected.
New Assignment is meant to have some kind of reputation system, presumably to weed out the loonies, bigots, blowhards and PR men who will most likely attempt to hi-jack it. But who will be left? And what will they add that isn’t being covered already? And will it be a stand-alone product, or a source for the rest of the media?
Who knows - I wish it well, but if I was a citizen with a big story that needed to be told, I’d go straight to the newspapers.
Technorati Tags: NewAssignment, open source, reuters, citizenjournalism
Comments (3) to “Open source journalism - what for?”
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Christian wrote:
It doesn’t really seem like something that could work - open source, to me, implies fiddling and tweaking with something and being able to modify it as time goes on. Obviously, the most frequently cited example of open source is good ol’ Linux: there are many distros of Linux, but only one of windows / MacOS - to carry the metaphor, does this mean the site will give several versions of the same story? Or will it just all be free?
I’m sceptical.
Posted on 02-Oct-06 at 1:27 pm | Permalink
David wrote:
It’s going to be tough to pull off, but I think it’s possible. The beauty of open source is that it can be adapted to different genres. Sure, Linux is the classic example, but now we have open source culture (creative commons), open source knowledge (wikipedia) and even open source science (BIOS). Don’t forget open source beer! (A story I did for Wired a long time ago: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,68144,00.html
Granted Newassignment will need to figure out a system to make it work, but open source journalism could be another adaptation. We will see.
Posted on 07-Oct-06 at 5:53 am | Permalink
ben wrote:
I’m sure they’ll be able to produce a site that is worthwhile, and gets readers. But will it be sufficiently different from ordinary journalism to merit all the hoopla?
I suppose as a professional journalist I’m biased - casualisation and amateurism are already a curse on the business, and many fear that ‘citizen journalism’ and its ilk will make ‘real journalism’ economically unviable, but replace it with an inferior product. I expect professional encyclopaedia writers feel that way about wikipedia…
Posted on 08-Oct-06 at 8:29 pm | Permalink