Jay Rosen has a lengthy, lengthy Q&A on NewAssignment.Net, which, with some VC funds from the likes of Craig Newmark from Craiglist, hopes to create a New Media/Old Media hybrid. Who isn’t these days?
The basic idea is that The Masses create and fine-tune assignments, which will eventually get voted to the front page. Once their, Angel Donors drop dollars to fund a reporter to report, using the Wiki-ized assignment sheet created by The Masses. Full-time, paid Editor/Blogger oversees all of this and pushes things along when necessary, and eventually a story is born.
It’s a complicated venture, to say the least.