Dave “DigiDave” Cohn, the one-man editing and assignment desk behind several NewAssignment.net projects — including Off The Bus (a joint venture in “crowdsourced” political reporting with The Huffington Post) and Assignment Zero (a joint effort with Jeff Howe of Wired magazine) — has a great overview of all the different projects that Jay Rosen’s brainchild is or has been involved in, including:
BeatBlogging.org: Reporters with thirteen news organizations have agreed to try using the Internet — including tools such as blogs and wikis — to build a network of sources that can help them become smarter about their beat.
OffTheBus.Net: In which motivated individuals agree to keep tabs on an election campaign and file reports to The Huffington Post and NewAssignment.
ReadableLaws.com: A lab experiment aimed at using a wiki to turn legal jargon into plain English.
Assignment Zero: The project with Wired looked at the phenomenon of “crowdsourcing” through interviews and feature stories, and while it wasn’t a big success it was a learning experience according to Dave and Jay.
Polling Place Photo Project: A lab experiment that saw people from all over the U.S. track what their polling place looked like on Super Tuesday, and this year was copied by the New York Times.
Some great ideas from Jay and Dave and the rest of the NewAssignment team — and plenty to look forward to in 2008.