ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role of the crowd in journalism for sourcing information and resources. It introduces a framework for analyzing the value of crowdsourcing as an open journalistic practice. The chapter explains crowdsourcing and its boundaries between other methods of large-scale online collaboration and participatory journalistic practices, going on to illustrate how crowdsourcing has been used in journalism. It presents a framework for analyzing the value of crowdsourcing in journalism. The balance between the benefits and costs create the value of crowdsourcing in journalism. The crowd also learns from each other, and that peer learning contributes to wider knowledge about the issue the journalist is investigating. The crowdsourcing method requires substantial human resources and also challenges traditional journalistic practices, norms, and ideals. Journalists can enhance the knowledge search aspects in crowdsourced journalistic processes by using several methods, depending on the goals of their investigations. In open journalism, openness comes into play in several parts of the journalistic process.
