Gannett, the parent company of USA Today and 90 other newspaper brethren, is attempting to evolve its newpaper concerns through something called crowdsourcing — the process which relies on sometimes upon unpaid or low-paid amateurs who use their spare time to create content, solve problems, or even do corporate R&D [definition courtesy of Wikipedia, which, ironically is the definition of crowdsourcing].

There’s a great piece in Wired about the issue which describes the changes:

The initiative emphasizes four goals: Prioritize local news over national news; publish more user-generated content; become 24-7 news operations, in which the newspapers do less and the websites do much more; and finally, use crowdsourcing methods to put readers to work as watchdogs, whistle-blowers and researchers in large, investigative features.

[emphasis mine, once again]

It looks like Gannett is trying to harness the energy and cost-savings of the always-on nature of bloggers and interested netizens — which I think is a great thing; it will enable newspapers to evolve out of the media that has defined them, to from delivering news on an entirely different medium, in a way that makes sense for the participatory nature of the Internet.

The difficulty, however, is trying to manage crowds so that they are efficient and competent organizations of individuals — no matter how loose they might be. While information gleaned from the blogosphere is always taken with a grain of salt, newspapers and professional news organizations, or whatever consists of the 4th estate, are held to a higher standard of professionalism — and as well they should be.

Much like Wikipedia trying to beget Citizendium and Digg begetting Netscape, I think that in order to ensure that level of quality-control will be necessary. If the crowds are working 24/7 to pull in data to be the whistle-watchers and researchers, I think the secret sauce will be be a commensurate requirement in editorial efforts to prevent the darker side of crowds, which will almost certainly require the development of another layer of newspaper bureaucracy.
As Mr. Howe’s Wired article goes — with particular hot button issues:

… “Rather than start a long investigation and come out months later in the paper with our findings we asked our readers to help us find out why the cost was so exorbitant,” said Kate Marymont, the News-Press‘ editor in chief. The response overwhelmed the paper, which has a circulation of about 100,000. “We weren’t prepared for the volume, and we had to throw a lot more firepower just to handle the phone calls and e-mails,” Marymont said.

As much as crowds can be wise in their decision making, they can also be down right stupid if prompted in the wrong fashion; a mob mentality can erupt.

When there is a greater degree of participation, there is a greater potential for abuse in all kinds of dimensions we haven’t even thought of.

Want proof?

There’s a petrie dish already called “Wikipedia” or even “Digg”, which do require editorial control (no matter what Kevin Rose tells you) so that socially driven news isn’t dominated by porn, stupid tricks, and explosions (explosively tricky porn?).

Much like Digg, for example — imagine if a concerned number of citizens with an agenda tried to push a specific story, or spin to a story; without editorial influence, you can only imagine how the flavour of a newspaper could change dramatically and overnight.

Of course, even with editorial influence, the changes could be subtle if organized blocs of diggers voters citizen journalists pushed the same spin over time.

Gaming a newspaper? I agree with Yardley.ca on this one – it could happen if Garnett’s not careful to employ tight rein over its newest journalists.