Josh Marshall's Moves

Political Journalism 2.0 is here. Professional political journalists are breaking stories by breaking down some of the research and outsourcing it to citizen journalists. Some of these adventures in crowdsourcing are not just reporting projects; they are political acts. Who is practicing this sort of journalism, and what are the results?

This is in fact a new, burgeoning genre of journalism. We need to identify the major players in this space, learn what they're doing, and look at the larger picture of where Political Journalism 2.0 fits into journalism and politics.

Josh Marshall at talkingpointsmemo.com and muckracker.com has become a living blogosphere legend for his use of crowdsourcing. The most prominent example: In one fell swoop, the Department of Justice released 3000 pages of documents related to the Attorney General scandal. Marshall put the word out for his readers to help comb through the documents, and overnight hundreds rose to the task, unearthing the juiciest, and newsiest parts.

Another great example is Firedoglake. Firedog regularly puts out a call for reader participation, and regularly gets great results. You can read about their ambitious crowdsourcing effort, the Roots Project here

We need more examples and more reporting on crowdsourcing in Political Journalism.