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Web Pulls Together Crowdsourcing, Citizen Journalism, Political Action & a Bit of Lobbying

by biverson | May 30, 2007 at 06:04 am | 234 views | 1 comment | 5 recommendations

Why should citizen journalists care about this, and get involved?...
The Freedom of Information Act is a tool available to everyone, since access to government information is a crucial aspect of a functioning democracy. FOIA requests often are the linchpin of acts of journalism -- whether committed by professional journalists employed by news organizations, or by citizen journalists.

Amy Gahran is picking up on what the SPJ.org has put together to smoke out a senatorial "secret hold" on a bill, do a bit of lobbying for an issue the organization cares about, and employ citizen journalism and crowd sourcing. The explanation of the project is here.

I thought it would be interesting to predict how long it will take for this collective action to out the secret senator, so I created a prediction market (still open for your participation as of 5/30)
When will the SPJ.org crowd sourcing effort identify the senator who put the hold The prediction market lets you buy shares (using pretend money) that represent your best guess as to when the secret will be found out.

This is a fun but significant kind of project. Citizens at every level of government could do this. It isn't much different than craigslist with a shared purpose. Think about it, and if you decide to use this tool, let me know.

As of 9:01 a.m. CST, the count was 44 "no's."