Guardian US “Open editor” Amanda Michel has partnered with Jay Rosen and his NYU graduate program, Studio 20, for a 2012 presidential campaign project called “Citizens Agenda.” It involves citizen journalism and its name should be possessive, if you ask us.
Ms. Michel and Mr. Rosen collaborated on a similar project, “OffTheBus,” during the 2008 election, when Ms. Michel was an editor at the Huffington Post.
Citizens Agenda aims to offer “an alternative narrative to the conventional ‘Who’s going to win?’ frame that historically dominates election coverage.”
Guardian US editor in chief Janine Gibson raises a good point: “We’re new in town. How could we possibly pretend to know what the US electorate wants to hear from its prospective representatives? Best in that circumstance to ask the question: What do voters want the candidates to be discussing as they contend with one another in 2012?”
It just goes to show: You can take the newspaper out of Britain but you can’t take the self-deprecating pragmatism out of its editors.
