And that sound was a score of journalists sighing

Jay Rosen, the NYU journalism professor who initiated the project, has written that only 28 percent of Assignment Zero worked. That’s a sobering assessment, but one that reflects the view expressed by other staffers and contributors. My own view is a little rosier: I found at least three-quarters of the Q&As to be equal to or exceeding the quality of thought and insight found in any national magazine. And if Assignment Zero failed to clear the especially high bar it set for itself, the fact it produced so large a body of work still speaks to the considerable potential of crowdsourced journalism.