Assignment Zero Moves into the Production Phase

Perhaps you've been wondering what's going on with Assigment Zero--everything's been a bit quiet lately.

But the Editorial Team has been working overtime pulling together all the various editorial elements we will need to have in place for our June 5 deadline.

Here's a quick glimpse of what we've been up to behind the scenes. . .

Interview editor Angela Pacienza has been working with contributors to get their Q&As in on time. She's also been co-ordinating the Q&A editing efforts with a great group of voluteers from the Online News Association (and doing some of the editing, too.)

Senior editor Hillary Rosner has been co-ordinating efforts of the editors and contributors on our seven feature articles--keeping everyone on track and making sure everthing is completed and filed. From Hillary's constant attention to what's happening with our features, we will, on June 5, see full stories from Crowdsourced Journalism, Film, Social News, Architecture, Photography, Religion and Novels.

Amanda Michel, our Director of Participation, has switched hats just a bit, and has been working on editing the html and pitching in with the Q&A editing. She's also been fielding questions from contributors about the status of AZ and of their submissions.

Tish Grier's been helping Angela track the Q&A submissions and fine-tuning the html where needed. She's also been creating posts for the Scoop, and spending quality time with her email, contacting contributors and tracking down pics to accompany the Q&As.

And David Cohn's been monitoring Q&A and Feature status, matching up contributors with interview subjects, editing the html, doing some Q&A editing, answering email from every quarter of the project, never sleeping, formating and posting pictures--you name it, he's been doing it....

So, as you can see, it's been a pretty busy "newsroom" over here--except that we're not all in the same space, nor are we all working at the exact same time. At times it has the feeling of a 24-hour newsroom with a staff of five--copious emails at all sorts of times of day. Then there are times when it's as if no one's around at all (and there are metaphorical crickets chirping in the background.) Yet even in those moments, one of us, somewhere, is busy with some particular task that will help all those bits and pieces and efforts coalesce into something pretty darned amazing. . .

Stay tuned....

--tish grier