Interview the blogger behind Porkbusters.

Reporter's Notebook

Assignment

NZ Bear is a pseudonymous blogger who operates the Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem, a ranking system for the blogosphere based on how many times a blog is linked.

He is also behind Porkbusters, an effort among bloggers and their readers to reduce wasteful spending in Washington D.C.

Here's how it works: bloggers ask their readers to research wasteful spending in their home states, or to investigate whether or not their senator has placed a secret hold on legislation to curb earmarks. Readers do the research and report back to the bloggers.

The information is assembled in a database or blog post, publicized among blogs, eventually jumps to the mainstream media, and Congress is thereby pressured to stop spending so much, or to pass anti-pork legislation.

The National Review's Stephen Spruiell followed the influence of Porkbusters just this past January:

When asked about the future of Porkbusters, both Reynolds and N.Z. Bear say that the group is more of an ad hoc response team than an organization with a plan of action. “We can act as a catalyst,” “Bear” says, “and my ambitions and to-do list mostly revolve around trying to build out the tools and the infrastructure of the Porkbusters site so we can form a community around it and put tools in the hands of people who want to be involved.”

As an already successful effort to influence legislation and the culture of open government, Porkbusters is an ongoing project that we've got to investigate as an example for our story.

Go to it!


Background

Crowdsourcing in Politics

Politics in the United States has always been a phenomenon of the crowd. Citizens donate money to campaigns, elect politicians, come together to lobby government officials, etc.

So what's new?

In an Internet age, the traditional ways people band together to influence politics are cheaper and easier than ever... and new crowd sourcing efforts exist, in fact and in theory, that would've been impossible before.

As Jay Rosen notes, politicians are always claiming to involve a crowd of supporters.

We're looking to cut through all that and isolate any instances where "the many" and their contributions--especially their collected ideas, pooled knowledge or voluntary activity--have actually replaced the few, where the crowd's work has proven more effective, or just better than the ideas, knowledge and actions of hired guns, political professionals, or staff...

Only where the power of many is disruptive to the normal pattern in politics--replacing the old practice or generating a new practice--do we have a story worthy of Assignment Zero.

So how should we organize the story? And what examples do we have so far?

CAMPAIGNS: The Internet makes it possible to organize masses of volunteers and raise tons of money without the firm backing of your political party's establishment -- consider Howard Dean's 2004 campaign, which AssignmentZero editor Amanda plans to write about.

LEGISLATION: One Utah legislator successfully experimented with a wiki that enabled constituents to contribute to school voucher legislation, garnering press attention and ultimately easing the bill's passage.

OPEN GOVERNMENT: Porkbusters is a blogger-driven effort to reduce Congressional pork barrel spending. When founders Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds and N.Z. Bear found out about a secret hold placed on an anti-pork bill in the Senate, they asked their readers to track down the culprit by process of elimination. And they succeeded.

SO WHAT NEXT?

Our goal is a piece of journalism that explains this broad phenomenon.

So are these the best examples we've got, or can we do better? Let's use the assignments on the right to figure that out.

And are the three categories I've used the best way to organize the story? (If not, post your critique or alternative here.)

Questions? Feedback? Suggestions? E-mail me at conor.newassignment@gmail.com


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