Wikinews: The Unassociated Press

The New York Times has a report on Wikinews, an experiment in collaborative news gathering and reporting, and the latest in a collection of Wikis under the umbrella of the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation. Inspired, in part, by the success of open source software development, the writing process is completely public. Anyone at any time can compose a new Wikinews article, edit an existing one and see an inventory of all prior changes.

For Wikinews proponents, the evolution of content is one of the system's strengths, and one of its challenges. The larger and more mature Wikipedia project is often cited by Wiki users as an example of how consensus can evolve into truth. But Wikinews articles do not enjoy the same luxury of time.

Larry Sanger, a lecturer in philosophy at Ohio State, who was involved in the creation of Wikipedia but is not affiliated with Wikinews, suggested that the Wiki system worked well for encyclopedic content because there were no deadlines. "But there are necessarily deadlines in news reporting, because news changes every day," he said.

Will a need for speed affect the incentive for volunteers to contribute? This is a concern of Erik Möller, a technology journalist in Berlin who drafted the original Wikinews project proposal. "Wikinews articles are short-lived, so there is a reduced feeling of contributing to a knowledge base that will last a lifetime," he said.

Posted by Tom on February 13, 2005