An experiment in citizen reporting has received a major boost from Reuters.
The news agency has given US$100,000 to NewAssignment.net. The project is the brainchild of Jay Rosen who teaches journalism at New York University. It aims to bring together amateur and professional journalists to produce investigative reports.
Announcing the grant on his blog, PressThink, Rosen said the money from Reuters would underwrite the costs of hiring the project’s first editor, who will start in early 2007.
A news release quoted Reuters Media president Chris Ahearn as saying: “We believe that the Internet is the perfect vehicle for galvanizing the public to become more involved in reporting. Reuters is hopeful that NewAssignment.Net will foster the kind of hard-hitting journalism that the public is hungry for, and will be more inclined to trust.”
The decision by Reuters to back NewAssignment.net should be applauded. But I can’t help thinking that US$100,000 is just a drop in the ocean for a media giant that had revenues of US$4.4 billion in 2005.
Shouldn’t news organisations be backing hard-hitting investigations by their own journalists, as well as looking for new innovative ways of tapping into the power of the audience?
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