Historically, journalism has been best practiced alone. The reporter, huddled in his cubby, furiously pounds out a hot story on deadline, wanting to be left alone rather than helped. "Team coverage" is a nice idea as far as it goes - but writing, ultimately, is a lonely pursuit.
But the masses of the Internet, always eager to improve or destroy a well-established practice, have deemed "crowdsourcing" the journalism technique of the future. The wisdom of crowds, the theory goes, will allow ...