Assignment Zero: can crowds create fiction, architecture and photography?

Assignment Zero produced about 80 stories, essays and interviews about crowdsourcing. Wired posted all of them and reprinted 12 of the best. Jay Rosen, executive editor of the project, admits it hasn’t been easy:

“When we started Assignment Zero in partnership with Wired News, I said we were trying to figure something out: can large groups of widely scattered people, working together voluntarily on the net, report on something happening in their world right now, and by dividing the work wisely tell the story more completely, while hitting high standards in truth, accuracy and free expression? […]

I wouldn’t say it’s easy for widely scattered people working together voluntarily on the net to report on a big story unfolding in many places at once. But we know a lot more about it now than we did when we started, and one of the goals of Assignment Zero was to test whether pro-am methods had potential. I think they do, but we haven’t really unlocked it yet. We are, however, getting closer.”

– Assignment Zero stories
– A reflection story on journalism