The coverage of the MPs expenses scandal is an example of old and new media co-existing, according to Jon Bernstein, the former multimedia editor of Channel 4 News.

What started out as a traditional old media scoop – with the Daily Telegraph sifting through the data and revealing information in stages – has now been put into ‘the hands of the crowd’ through crowd sourcing experiments conducted by both the Telegraph and the Guardian.

And quite a few people have taken part so far:

“On Sunday the paper boasted that almost 20,000 people had taken part, helping it to scour nearly 160,000 documents. So far so great.”

Not to be outdone, the Telegraph also began its own crowd sourcing excercise:

“By the middle of the week, the Telegraph was offering its far-less redacted expenses documents in PDF form and all its data in a Google spreadsheet, while simultaneously asking readers directly: “What have you spotted?”

Bernstein concludes:

“Both papers – and the wider media come to that – have enriched our understanding of a complex and sprawling story. What started as a proprietorial scoop is now in the hands of the crowd.

“Old media and new coexisting.”