* NewAssignment.net has launched a blog and is looking for potential stories to cover. Mark Glaser has been surveying folks at MediaShift and it looks like they want to see the U.S. Government as the focus of any investigative reporting. I’ve been asked to help advise NewAssignment.net. Finding models to pay for acts of investigative journalism is crucial. If, in any way I can help, I am happy to do so.

* keepgoing.org: The Big Fish: The story of Suck.com, it’s rise and eventual fall, is chock full of early web publishing lessons. Suck (and Feed) are two efforts that don’t get mentioned very often in these conversations, since they no longer exist, but maybe should.

* Mark Glaser: News21 Produces Investigative Reports, But Can Universities Think Different?: Last year the Carnegie Corporation and Knight Foundation joined with five journalism schools in pledging $6 million dollars to create the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Education – News21. It’s already producing results and lessons.

* Tom Mohr, formerly of Knight Ridder Digital, has a solution for the newspaper industry’s woes: and it sounds suspiciously like recreating the Market Leader CMS platform and Knight Ridder Digital.

* Adrian Holovaty of the Washington Post, describes a fundamental way newspaper sites need to change. It costs money, but the end result is an investment that will help papers be far more flexible in their reporting.

Hey – what’s a Norg? And there was an unconference you say? Uhuh. And an ongoing conversation. We need to get our site rolling.