Offthebus and Scoop08 join political scene

From Editor & Publisher: NEW YORK Two new citizen journalism sites are offering coverage of the 2008 presidentiral election, according to EditorsWeblog.org.

OffTheBus.com (OTB) is a project launched by The Huffington Post for the campaign. Arianna Huffington and Jay Rosen of New York University publish OTB.

OTB has a low start up costs of $150,000. Like much of The Huffington Post, the writers will not be paid.

Even though the contributors will not be trained journalists, Huffington says she doesn't expect it to be a free-for-all.

Huffington has made it clear that if someone writes an opinion it can go on the site’s blog. She doesn't expect her correspondents to be completely neutral on campaign issues. She does, however, expect them to be clear when they have a bias.

A similar site for campaign coverage is Scoop08.com, which plans to debut this Sunday. The site was created by high school and college students and targets its younger demographic.