feed
e-mail
February 11, 2005, 11.32pm • 416 comments » • 1,314 Views
Whacking Wikinews
The New York Times has run a piece on Wikinews and citizen news, making the good point that news articles - by definition, ephemeral and produced quicky - written collaboratively are unlikely to acquire the authority that massed reader-editor amateurs give to Wikipedia articles over time.
Wikipedia co-creator Larry Sanger told the Times of the new news venture:-
There are necessarily deadlines in news reporting, because news changes every day.
Meanwhile, Erik Möller, who drafted the original Wikinews proposal, added:-
Wikinews articles are short-lived, so there is a reduced feeling of contributing to a knowledge base that will last a lifetime.
That’s certainly one of the issues. But another is - what constitutes citizen news? The Times says Wikinews claimed its first scoop when a site “reporter” wrote an account of unrest in Belize, 12 hours before it appeared in a wire report.
But the majority of Wikinews content is still disappointingly reliant on those wire services and an array of existing Big Media sources. The site’s current lead story - “Shakidor Dam bursts in Pakistan after heavy rain” - runs to a thin five paragraphs in the last 14 hours, all attributed to Reuters (twice), Voice of America, United Press International, Xinhua news, ABC News and Yahoo! News (incorrectly - it’s an AP report).
One can see the editing process this story underwent on its history page. The first version is a single paragraph that only linked off to the AP story filed earlier and contains several typos and gramamtical issues. Later versions carry an entirely different intro that - unlike the first - better locates the damn incident geographically, but concentrates on the week leading up to the event, not the immediate event (the news) itself (context should come later in the story). The fifteenth revision still hadn’t eradicated the typos but added repetition of facts. After 14 hours of tweaking, prodding and passing back and forth between authors, who meanwhile are chatting in a Wikinews IRC room, the lead story serves best as a pointer to the stories written by major newsgathering organisations. Something Google News can do (it’s currently pointing to 378 such sources.
Where’s the value in remote citizen “reporters” repeating agency, newspaper or television accounts filed by journalists actually at the scene, or at least in the same region news occurs?
Wikinews laudibly aims toward neutrality. But will recycling existing reports merely recycling the subjectivity many claim lays in institutionalised news? Will the method by which it strives for neutrality - attribution, sourcing, no opinon - ever amount to anything other than openess and honesty (as opposed to neutrality, which is something entirely different)? In either case, what if you believe that journalism of any kind can never never be entirely objective and that the industry’s professional modus operandi toward it is ultimately unachievable?
Gillmor says:-
No, we can’t make Wikipedia perfect. But we can improve it.
After all, it is in beta.
Update (Feb 17, 2005): In the interest of balancing opinions, Wikinews has started a page indexing criticisms of the service on weblogs. I read Steve Yelvington’s post last night, liked it.
416 comments on “Whacking Wikinews”
It really is starting to frighten me how many people see wikipedia as authoritative.
I think the magic ‘authoritative’ is specifically what wikis set out to address. You cannot put your faith in someone to tell you stuff. You have to research different points of view.
Wiki simply provides a forum where these points of view can be presented together, and we can continually integrate new points of view.
I don’t find the articles on wikipedia more accurate than articles from encyclopedia. I would say less so .. but the point of view is disperse, that is what is good.
And I can fix them. 
“Where’s the value in remote citizen ‘reporters’ repeating agency, newspaper or television accounts filed by journalists actually at the scene, or at least in the same region news occurs?”
OK. Firstly, show me a major news paper that does *not* mostly report wire stories for content.
Secondly, show me one which *does* source the content for those reports from multiple sources, not just reprint an unmodified AP/Reuters/AFP … story.
Thirdly, please demonstrate that there is no value in citizens learning how write ‘news’ via wikinews, be it ‘original’ reporting, or simply collating from multiple sources and archiving in a public, peer reviewed, online, free form.
Robert, why didn’t you simply fix the mistakes yourself instead of sitting there feeling smug?
ANYONE can edit a wiki, and Wikinews is no different. Join us!
Robert Andrews
February 15, 2005, at 3.30pm
Dan said: “Robert, why didn’t you simply fix the mistakes yourself instead of sitting there feeling smug?
– Sometimes, people just want to be informed. I’m all for participatory media and could easily join in. But I think you’ll have to take in to account that you (will?) have an audience as well as a community - because news is news, people will come to be informed, and quickly, not just to engage in a dialogue or a collaborative correction exercise. Of course, we could say the only difference between Wikinews and mainstream media outlets is that the latter do not allow readers to correct mistakes etc.
Simmo said: OK. Firstly, show me a major news paper that does *not* mostly report wire stories for content. Secondly, show me one which *does* source the content for those reports from multiple sources, not just reprint an unmodified AP/Reuters/AFP … story.
– www.independent.co.uk/ (lead story is a first-person report on the death of the Lebanese Prime Minister)
– Many European newspapers use wire copy in their stories, many US papers rely largely on unedited wire copy (although I do prefer that they flag it as such) - but not all.
Simmo said: Wiki simply provides a forum where these points of view can be presented together, and we can continually integrate new points of view.
– I like the way, in your current lead story, you juxtapose conflicting information from a variety of news reports. Whilst Google News is powerful, I guess it would take someone a long time to read through each report it holds to reach a balance picture.
– So I suppose we’re talking about a distinction between actually reporting and collating/aggregating? I’m sceptical that the latter constitutes “citizen journalism”.
Andrew,
Thanks for replying.
“So I suppose we’re talking about a distinction between actually reporting and collating/aggregating? I’m sceptical that the latter constitutes ‘citizen journalism’.”
The hope is that the site will build and grow, but at this stage, yes original reporting is both underutilised, and experimental.
Personally I am confident that we will get significant good original stories, but if not, I find the aggregating of diverse reports to be a major benefit in itself.
I share your doubt about original content ever overtaking aggregated content, but I think we both agree that this is not unusual even in mainstream media outlets.
You are correct that some readers will just want to read news, and we should be friendly to those readers. Our first attempts at procedures to screen stories failed, whether its feasible or not I’m not sure - it depends largely on what kind of work users do on the site, whether with large numbers of users such as wikipedia now has, there can be plenty of editors and stories developed out of view of ‘wiki-naive’ readers, then ‘approved’.
I think the more important change that is occuring and will continue to occur is that readers become familiar with the concept of ‘wiki’, learn to use the ‘history’ feature and that the culture spreads widely through the internet so that an average net user can judge whether a story has developed in a balanced way, or ‘not yet’.
The most important thing, as you have pointed out, is the list of references - particularly when a story is young and has not been reviewed by many users. This is one thing that will not change, although what will happen is that with older stories the links will often be dead, because mainstream outlets in particular hide or remove old content from their sites.
Readers I think will learn quite quickly that if anything in the story seems doubtful or unbalanced, they should check the referenced stories and history or discussion page.
Readers can always raise questions, either in the discussion page of a story, or at several pages specifically used for discussion, such as the ‘Water Cooler’ page. If they are very naive they may even question the facts of an article in the story itself, although this is strongly discouraged, and would normally be tidied up by some other user quite quickly.
And just remember… it took Wikipedia four years to get to where it is today. Wikinews is barely months old. Give us time to fufil our potential!
online casino gambling
June 21, 2005, at 11.39pm
online casino gambling
You are invited to take a look at some helpful info in the field of online casino gambling
internet casino
June 22, 2005, at 3.05am
internet casino
You are invited to take a look at some relevant pages dedicated to internet casino
personalized poker chip
June 22, 2005, at 11.33am
personalized poker chip
You may find it interesting to check some relevant information in the field of texas holdem poker dogs playing poker
play texas holdem online
June 23, 2005, at 6.52am
play texas holdem online
In your free time, visit the sites in the field of poker chip tricks free video strip poker
texas hold em chips sale casino style
June 23, 2005, at 5.32pm
texas hold em chips sale casino style
You are invited to take a look at the sites in the field of adult poker online party poker
pharmacy
You can also check out some relevant pages on diet pills online pharmacy pharmacy
world poker tour
June 24, 2005, at 10.02am
world poker tour
You can also check some information on world series of poker free online poker
black jack
June 24, 2005, at 7.22pm
black jack
In your free time, check some relevant pages in the field of jack black craps
casino poker chips
June 25, 2005, at 2.46am
casino poker chips
You are invited to check some helpful info in the field of jack black craps las vegas casinos
online gambling
June 25, 2005, at 11.23am
online gambling
Please take a look at the sites dedicated to free slots gambling online casinos
pacific poker
June 25, 2005, at 9.43pm
pacific poker
You are invited to visit some relevant information about poker games online poker
refinance
Please check some relevant information dedicated to loans home loans
world series of poker
June 26, 2005, at 2.38pm
world series of poker
You are invited to check some relevant pages about world series of poker free online poker
software strippoker
June 27, 2005, at 12.01am
software strippoker
You are invited to check the sites on poker 888 holdem over the net party poker bonus codes
poker
You are invited to take a look at some helpful info on strip poker party poker
online gambling
June 27, 2005, at 11.26pm
online gambling
You can also visit some relevant information in the field of casino
pharmacy
In your free time, take a look at some relevant pages about diet pills online pharmacy
texas hold em
June 28, 2005, at 11.34pm
texas hold em
Take your time to take a look at some relevant pages on pacific poker poker games
empire poker
June 29, 2005, at 1.28pm
empire poker
Take your time to take a look at some relevant pages dedicated to pacific poker poker games
empire poker
June 29, 2005, at 1.28pm
empire poker
Take your time to take a look at some relevant pages dedicated to pacific poker poker games
texas holdem for pocket pc
June 29, 2005, at 10.00pm
texas holdem for pocket pc
You may find it interesting to visit the pages on texas hold em tournament in atlantic city
poker online for free
June 30, 2005, at 6.12am
poker online for free
Take your time to check some relevant pages on free poker game online how to build a poker table
on line poker game
June 30, 2005, at 11.10pm
on line poker game
You may find it interesting to check out some information about free online texas hold em odds
how to stack the deck in texas hold em
July 1, 2005, at 7.44am
how to stack the deck in texas hold em
Take your time to take a look at some relevant pages about online poker cheats and scams
wsop satellites
July 1, 2005, at 4.12pm
wsop satellites
You may find it interesting to check out the pages dedicated to play poker like the pros
hold em questions
July 2, 2005, at 12.50am
hold em questions
Please check some relevant information dedicated to texas holdem history texas hold em tv poker game
black jack strategy
July 2, 2005, at 4.49pm
black jack strategy
Take your time to check out some relevant information about black jack download no black jack headers
general black jack pershing
July 3, 2005, at 1.37am
general black jack pershing
You may find it interesting to check some helpful info dedicated to blackjack pershing american roulette
casino niagara
July 3, 2005, at 4.14pm
casino niagara
You are invited to take a look at some information about free video poker online casinos
serious skin care
July 4, 2005, at 6.47am
serious skin care
You may find it interesting to check the pages dedicated to buy levitra online diabetes diet pill
fast weight loss
July 4, 2005, at 1.44pm
fast weight loss
Take your time to take a look at the pages on prozac skin care products
fast weight loss
July 4, 2005, at 1.44pm
fast weight loss
Take your time to take a look at the pages on prozac skin care products
online poker
July 4, 2005, at 8.53pm
online poker
You can also take a look at some relevant pages dedicated to party poker texas hold em
empire poker
July 5, 2005, at 4.21am
empire poker
Please take a look at some helpful info in the field of poker rooms
pacific poker
July 5, 2005, at 11.57am
pacific poker
Please take a look at some relevant pages about poker games online poker
texas holdem poker chips
July 5, 2005, at 4.40pm
texas holdem poker chips
In your free time, take a look at the pages about stratagies for texas holdem poker online
party poker
July 6, 2005, at 1.59am
party poker
You are invited to take a look at the sites dedicated to poker texas hold em
pacific poker
July 6, 2005, at 9.04am
pacific poker
You can also check out some relevant pages about online poker poker games
poker
You may find it interesting to take a look at some information dedicated to poker rooms poker
pacific poker
July 7, 2005, at 12.38am
pacific poker
In your free time, take a look at the sites about texas holdem poker
free slots
July 7, 2005, at 9.05am
free slots
July 7, 2005, at 9.05am
online casinos
July 8, 2005, at 12.48am
online casinos
In your free time, visit some relevant pages about online casinos online gambling
online gambling
July 8, 2005, at 8.36am
online gambling
You may find it interesting to take a look at the sites on blackjack slot machines
texas holdem
July 8, 2005, at 11.45pm
texas holdem
You may find it interesting to visit some information on empire poker
pacific poker
July 9, 2005, at 7.52am
pacific poker
You are invited to check the pages on poker poker games
texas holdem
July 9, 2005, at 4.12pm
texas holdem
You are invited to visit some relevant information on texas holdem party poker
texas holdem
July 9, 2005, at 4.12pm
texas holdem
You are invited to visit some relevant information on texas holdem party poker
casino
You are invited to visit some information in the field of free slots online casinos
bad credit auto loan
July 11, 2005, at 2.14am
bad credit auto loan
Take your time to check out the sites in the field of mortgage loans business loans
online prescription
July 11, 2005, at 1.19pm
online prescription
Please check the sites dedicated to online prescription online prescription drugs
online casinos
July 12, 2005, at 7.22am
online casinos
Take your time to check out the sites dedicated to online casino online casino
stud poker
July 13, 2005, at 1.13am
stud poker
You are invited to check some relevant pages on poker site texas hold em poker game
free texas hold em
July 13, 2005, at 9.37am
free texas hold em
You are invited to check out the sites on official poker rules poker rooms
free texas holdem download
July 13, 2005, at 9.10pm
free texas holdem download
You can also check the sites on texas holdem poker tip
texas holdem
July 14, 2005, at 9.16pm
texas holdem
You may find it interesting to check some information in the field of texas holdem
online gambling
July 15, 2005, at 5.50am
online gambling
You may find it interesting to visit the sites dedicated to online gambling
online poker game
July 15, 2005, at 10.28pm
online poker game
You can also check some information on poker poker hands world series of poker
free poker
July 16, 2005, at 7.21am
free poker
You are invited to check some relevant pages in the field of poker rules pacific poker
play roulette
July 17, 2005, at 10.31am
play roulette
You are invited to check some helpful info dedicated to casino web site internet casinos
blackjack online
July 17, 2005, at 8.28pm
blackjack online
You are invited to visit the sites dedicated to slot machines internet casino
online casino
July 18, 2005, at 4.50am
online casino
You are invited to visit some helpful info dedicated to online casino gambling casino on net
two feet texas holdem v1 5 1 3
July 18, 2005, at 7.45pm
two feet texas holdem v1 5 1 3
You may find it interesting to check out some relevant pages about online texas holdem
credit repair
July 22, 2005, at 1.35am
credit repair
In your free time, take a look at some relevant pages on california mortgage payday advance
who invented texas holdem poker
July 22, 2005, at 7.15am
who invented texas holdem poker
You may find it interesting to take a look at some relevant information dedicated to no deposit bouns texas holdem
buy ultram online
July 23, 2005, at 4.07am
buy ultram online
In your free time, visit some information dedicated to alprazolam atenolol bontril
pacific poker freeroll schedule
July 23, 2005, at 10.12am
pacific poker freeroll schedule
Please take a look at some relevant information in the field of blitz march pacific poker
empire poker
July 23, 2005, at 10.42pm
empire poker
In your free time, take a look at some information on poker rooms party poker
roulette
You may find it interesting to visit the sites in the field of blackjack free slots
casino poker
July 24, 2005, at 5.12pm
casino poker
You can also take a look at some information dedicated to casino chips free online casinos
texas holdem stategy
July 25, 2005, at 12.29pm
texas holdem stategy
Please check out some relevant pages on texas holdem poker online poker card
free texas hold em no downloads
July 25, 2005, at 10.12pm
free texas hold em no downloads
You may find it interesting to check the sites on poker cards custom poker chip
free play texas hold em
July 26, 2005, at 8.08am
free play texas hold em
You may find it interesting to take a look at some relevant information about poker table top poker chip cases
free play texas hold em
July 26, 2005, at 8.08am
free play texas hold em
You may find it interesting to take a look at some relevant information about poker table top poker chip cases
strategies for texas hold em
July 27, 2005, at 2.37am
strategies for texas hold em
In your free time, take a look at some relevant pages on free rules for poker free poker game
world poker tour
July 27, 2005, at 10.10am
world poker tour
You can also visit some information dedicated to free poker game yahoo poker
online poker
July 27, 2005, at 9.46pm
online poker
please visit online poker play online poker play online poker
viagra online
July 28, 2005, at 3.22am
viagra online
You are invited to take a look at the sites in the field of birth control pills viagra online
buy soma
Take your time to visit the sites dedicated to discount drugs pain medication
student loan consolidation
July 29, 2005, at 6.29am
student loan consolidation
You may find it interesting to check some helpful info about home loans payday loan
Simmo
February 15, 2005, at 2.19pm