Maybe this is how Politico feels? Photo by Sandra Abrams

Politico is missing in action when it comes to crowdsourcing. Or maybe it just hates crowds. Either way, Politico is M.I.A. on the issue. I could not find one example of a crowdsourced project for the political news organization. With the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, Politico missed a huge branding opportunity to get the crowd involved. Perhaps it was the memo NPR sent out to its staffers that made Politico skittish on using this event as a crowdsourcing project. Also, it could be that job was outsourced to its sister site, TBD.com, part of Allbritton Communications (story from editorsweblog.org tbd_uses_map-based_crowdsourcing_to_char.php ).
After all, that is what crowdsourcing is about, outsourcing your newsgathering to the “crowd” like an open call.

I checked and re-checked and I must be missing the place where to look on any general crowdsourcing projects it has done. Saturday’s rally by Comedy Central would have been ideal for Politico to initiate such a project. The timing was short, from 12noon to 3pm, so the duration for collecting data would not be for days on end. The information could have been turned into story from the audience or a quasi-poll. Questions could have been, your estimate of the crowd, or best sign, best musical performance and best political speech by a speaker and then categorized for the online audience.

With crowds estimated at over 200,000; this would have been a great way to examine what people were saying from one end to the other of The Mall. Perhaps the reasons for not using this particular venue had some disadvantages which we discussed in class: bias, yes, many people attending had political leanings to the left than to the right; newsworthiness, some in the crowd thought this rally was led by “real” news anchors -Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert; and finally, the issue of manipulation, individuals in the crowd might seek to influence projects to their own ends. Numerous examples fit this last issue: I saw several signs carried by men that read, “I am only here to meet women.”

What Politico did do for the rally was a minute by minute twitter feed with links to its own story, a live blog of the event, and the highs and lows story by Politico Click stewart_rally_highs_and_lows.html. But this is not the same as incorporating citizen journalism into an event; especially one of this size and with so many eyewitnesses. It would have been a great way to counter anyone including political pundits who did not attend but pontificated on what happened at such a large venue. The website does have a link for community, across the tool bar. People can comment on stories, a form of crowd sourcing on political discourse. But this is not a project.

Rally for Sanity and/or Fear, The Crowd Photo by Sandra Abrams

I do see that TBD.com is asking the community to report and help the news organization map any voting trouble for Tuesday. Instructions are clear for the participants help-tbd-map-voting-problems-tuesday-4003.html . Perhaps Politico will piggy-back on this story in some way.  As for the rally, a missed opportunity for Politico to actively engage its readership and the “Faces in the Crowd.”