Jay Rosen announced on Monday the formation of a journalism project combining seasoned editors, tech-savvy reporters, and "smart users" supported by donations from a public that is interested in "stories the regular news media doesn’t do, can’t do, wouldn’t do, or already screwed up."

NewAssignment.net "doesn't exist yet," but there has been some initial funding contributed by the MacArthur Foundation, along with a $10,000 contribution from Craig Newmark's personal foundation, and donated services from Jeff Jarvis' start-up newsgathering site Daylife. Once the project is up and running, additional funding will be raised separately for each story. Jay explains that NewAssignment.net is a "charity" and "will raise funds for high quality journalism any way it can figure out that’s wise, that works and maintains the site’s independence and reputation. It may be that very good editors can raise a lot money for their special funds by developing a track record, knowing their donors, finding sponsors who want to be associated with the work, or buyers in the media who will pay the costs. New Assignment syndicates to Big Media and gets paid that way. Or it could accept sponsorships. We’ll see."

Finding the right story begins with posting an idea on the site to see not just if there is any initial interest, but also discover if any citizens might wish assist in fact-finding or assisting with the story in various ways. When "lots of participants show interest in the early stages to contribute knowledge and help refine the story to the point where it is assignable and (the editors believe) fundable," it will enter the next phase of development.

Editors wil play the most important role in the process. Editors' duties will range from blogging regularly and communicating with the public to hiring reporters, setting deadlines and budgets, and doing additional fundraising for specific projects. "Editors have to develop reputations or they’re sunk. In order to do that, they have to be able to fund extremely promising or urgent ideas that for one reason or another are not a “hit” in the online fundraising stage."

As Jay sees it, "The challenge is to develop the art of collaboratively-reported stories, which is waiting to be proven viable." He is, however, realistic about the project: "NewAssignment.Net is not 'the' answer, by any stretch... But there can’t be one best way in the new political economy of newsgathering. We’re better off with many people trying many schemes, including some that sound crazy. Mine is no solution at all to how the press funds its Moscow bureaus, or how to keep the metropolitan newspaper together. I have answers to none of that."

After a thorough review of Jay's post, Mark Hamilton gives his reactions to the idea. On why he believes the project will work:" It will work because the addition of editors to the process, and making them largely responsible for the financial and readership success of the venture, brings discipline to the process. Crowds aren’t wise, but their aggregate actions can be — given guidance..."

Scott Karp, blogging at Publishing 2.0, reviews Jay's proposal and thinks the idea of pubilc support of the right journalist is a good idea, yet: "I'd caveat this by saying that local news could still be a for-profit business if it’s strongly linked to local commerce and local community. Pegasus News, for example, is working on a new local news business model. The local papers that survive will be those that succeed in reinventing their businesses — which is going to require some brave innovation. And there is still room for Jay’s model to work alongside the local news businesses that do survive and/or emerge."

Andrew Nachison, blogging at the Media Center's Morph blog notes the similarities and differences between NewAssignment.Net and Minnesota Public Radio's Pubilc Insight Journalism project: "The Minnesota project seeks story ideas and insight from a panel of volunteers who respond confidentially to help professional journalists come up with better stories and do a better job with those stories. The relationship between the professionals and the public is private and confidential - insight that is vetted, analyzed and applied by professionals. Jay's process will be open, public and collaborative - with professionals stepping in later to apply their skills once stories have been vetted, developed and funded through an open, collaborative process.

My hunch is that both approaches have strengths and weaknesses - and it's premature to guess what's right or wrong about Jay's project until he gets it going. Certainly the open process will be a novel flip of the traditional approach to journalism, which itself works in some cases and not in others. Jay's thoughts on funding through donations isn't novel - it works great for public television and radio in the U.S., as he notes. "

Jeff Jarvis gives his reasons for becoming involved with NewAssignment: "I’ve known about Jay’s vision for NewAssignment for more than a year now and I’ve thrown in my two cents. I think this is an important experiment in pro-am, publicly supported, open journalism. We must explore new business models to support coverage of news and this is one of them. I’m an enthusiastic supporter of NewAssignment and I look forward to working with Jay and you on it and learning a lot along the way. "

Craig Newmark, in a ZDNet exclusive, further explains his thoughts on the project's significance: "Mostly, this is my way of participating in the evolution of sustainable journalism. I figure there'll be a number of experiments, a few will work, but we don't know which ones."

Staci Kramer at PaidContent.org reviews the IT Matters podcast with David Berlind, Jay Rosen and Craig Newmark concludes: "How this will work, and whether it will wind up diverting dollars from other non-commercial efforts or users from commercial media remains to be seen. But it's a good example of how people at all levels are grappling with ways to turn the potential of community-based journalism into a reality."