Interesting to see that the Vancouver-based participatory news site NowPublic.com is expanding its editorial team. It comes after the site received $10m in venture capital funding last year. It has post several job ads on its blog. NowPublic is looking for: Regional Editors – US, Australia, China, India, South Africa and the UK A sports editor A community relations and content specialist Applications are due by February 1, so please

There’s a comprehensive journalist’s guide to crowdsourcing at the Online Journalism Review. It offers a useful primer for reporters struggling to work out what is the difference between citizen journalism and crowdsourcing. The OJR’s definition: Crowdsourcing, in journalism, is the use of a large group of readers to report a news story. It differs from traditional reporting in that the information collected is gathered not manually, by a reporter or

The Vancouver-based “citizen journalism” site, NowPublic, has attracted US$10.6m from a range of venture capital firms. According to co-founder and CEO Leonard Brody, large media companies were interested in buying up NowPublic, but the company decided to stay independent. The influx of cash can be seen as a vote of confidence in the site, coming after the demise of similar sites such as Backfence and Bayosphere. By comparison, NowPublic has

Wired has given its assessment of its Assignment Zero crowdsourcing project with NewAssignment.net. The project, which launched in January, has been closely followed by many interested in developing new models of professional-amateur journalism. The verdict by Wired contributing editor Jeff Howe is that Assignment Zero had proved more valuable as an experiment in discovering the pitfalls of crowdsourcing, rather than as an exercise in journalism. In the 12 weeks the

Following the unfolding story of the recent terror attacks in the UK, it is striking how much of the photos and video of the events came from the public. TV reports of the attack on Glasgow airport were dominated by shaky footage of the burning Jeep taken by a member of the public and sent to news organisations. The BBC alone received more than 70 photographs and videos of the

Kate Marymont of The News-Press in Fort Myers provided some valuable insights in two new journalism terms at the International Online Journalism Symposium. The News-Press, part of the Gannett chain, is becoming a lab for innovation in journalism, experimenting with mojos and crowdsourcing. Marymont explained how the paper started with a handful of mojos, mobile journalists, and now it has 52 reporters who are mobile. What this means is that

The website for the experiment in open-source reporting, NewAssignment.net, is now live. This is a soft launch, with the site starting off with blogs discussing networked reporting projects. New Assignment.Net is intended to produce high-quality journalism by bringing a way to bring together professional journalists and large groups of users. It is part of the trend towards crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing is a term coined by Wired magazine writer Jeff Howe and

The failed attempt by the Chinese government to stop the online distribution of video and photos of student demonstration in Rulan shows the power of a networked world. The blog Global Voices has a good write-up of the events surrounding the alleged suicide of a young teacher and the subsequent protests over the suspected police cover-up. Students filmed the protest and police reaction on their cellphones and posted clips to