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Wikinews

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Not to be confused with The Signpost.

Wikinews
The current Wikinews logo
The current Wikinews logo
Screenshot
Detail of the Wikinews multilingual portal main page
Screenshot of the home page of Wikinews
Type of site
News wiki
Available in30 languages
HeadquartersMiami, Florida
OwnerWikimedia Foundation
Created byWikimedia community
URLwikinews.org
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional
Users2882371
LaunchedNovember 8, 2004; 20 years ago (2004-11-08)
Content license
CC-BY 2.5[1]

Wikinews is a free-content news wiki and a project of the Wikimedia Foundation that works through collaborative journalism through user-created content. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has distinguished Wikinews from Wikipedia by saying, "On Wikinews, each story is to be written as a news story as opposed to an encyclopedia article."[2] Wikinews's neutral point of view policy aims to distinguish it from other citizen journalism efforts such as Indymedia and OhmyNews.[3] In contrast to most Wikimedia Foundation projects, Wikinews allows original work in the form of original reporting and interviews. In contrast to newspapers, Wikinews does not permit op-ed.[4]

As of December 2024, Wikinews sites are active in 31 languages,[5] with a total of 1,760,070 articles and 703 recently active editors (editors that contributed to the site in the last 30 days).[6]

Early years

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The beta version logo, used until February 13, 2005

The first recorded proposal of a Wikimedia news site was a two-line anonymous post on January 5, 2003, on the Wikimedia community's Meta-Wiki.[7][8] Daniel Alston, who edited Wikipedia as Fonzy,[9] claimed to have been the one who posted it.[7][10] The proposal was then further developed by German freelance journalist, software developer, and author Erik Möller.[7] Early opposition from long-time Wikipedia contributors, many of them pointing out the existence of Wikipedia's own news summaries, gave way to detailed discussions and proposals about how it could be implemented as a new project of the Wikimedia Foundation.[11]

The domain name wikinews.org was registered on April 2, 2004.[12] In November 2004, a demonstration wiki was established to show how such a collaborative news site might work.[11] A month later, in December 2004, the site was moved out of the "demo" stage and into the beta stage under public domain copyleft.[5][13] A German language edition was launched at the same time. Soon, editions in Italian, Dutch, French, Spanish, Swedish, Bulgarian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Japanese, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, Thai, Norwegian, Chinese, Turkish, Korean, Hungarian, Greek, Esperanto, Czech, Albanian, and Tamil (in that chronological order) were set up.[5]

In September 2005, the project moved to the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license.[13] On September 7, 2007, the English Wikinews published its 10,000th article.[14]

Interviews

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Wikinews reporter David Shankbone with Israeli president Shimon Peres in 2007

Wikinews reporters have conducted interviews with several notable people, including an interview in December 2007 with Israeli President Shimon Peres by Wikinews reporter David Shankbone. Shankbone had been invited to conduct the interview by the America-Israel Friendship League and the Israeli foreign ministry.[15][16]

Other notable interviews have included writers, actors, and politicians, such as Augusten Burroughs,[17] several 2008 U.S. Republican Party presidential primaries candidates like Sam Brownback and Duncan Hunter,[15] and others like British politician Tony Benn,[18] writer Eric Bogosian,[19] New Zealand politician Nick Smith,[20] former New Zealand prime minister John Key,[21] World Wide Web co-inventor Robert Cailliau,[22] drag queen RuPaul,[23] and former Wikimedia Foundation executive Sue Gardner.[24]

Criticism

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Wikinews has been criticized for its alleged inability to remain neutral in perspective and provide verifiable, reliable sources. In 2005, Robert McHenry, former editor-in-chief of the Encyclopædia Britannica, criticized the credibility of the project:

Above all, the central question about the Wikinews effort is its credibility. Making a newspaper is hard...Someone who wants to do it but doesn't really know how hasn't solved the problem by gathering a lot of other people who don't know, either.[3]

McHenry was skeptical about Wikinews' ability to provide a neutral point of view and its claim to be evenhanded, saying that "[t]he naïveté is stunning."[3]

In a 2007 interview given to Wikinews, Sue Gardner, at that time a special adviser to the board of the Wikimedia Foundation and former head of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Internet division, CBC.ca, dismissed McHenry's comment, stating:

Journalism is not a profession ... at its heart, it's just a craft. And that means that it can be practiced by anyone who is sensible and intelligent and thoughtful and curious ... I go back to the morning of Virginia Tech – the morning I decided I wanted to work [at the Wikimedia Foundation]. The conversation on the talk page that day was extremely thoughtful. I remember thinking to myself that if my own newsroom had been having a conversation that intelligent (I was offsite that day) I would have been delighted. So yes, [in my opinion] you absolutely have proved Robert McHenry wrong. And you will continue to.[25]

Wikinews has also had issues with maintaining a separate identity from Wikipedia, which also covers major news events in real-time. Columnist Jonathan Dee of The New York Times said in 2007 that "So indistinct has the line between past and present become that Wikipedia has inadvertently all but strangled one of its sister projects, the three-year-old Wikinews... [Wikinews] has sunk into a kind of torpor; lately it generates just 8 to 10 articles a day... On bigger stories there's just no point in competing with the ruthless purview of the encyclopedia."[26] Andrew Lih and Zachary M. Seward commented on the continuing issue in a 2010 piece in the Nieman Journalism Lab called "Why Wikipedia beats Wikinews as a collaborative journalism project." Lih wrote "it's not clear that the wiki process really gears itself towards deadlines and group narrative writing" and that "if you're trying to write something approaching a feature piece, it's much harder to get more than two or three people to stay consistent with the style."[27] Lih considers Wikipedia's stricter "formula" for article composition an advantage in a large wiki with many editors.[27] Brian Keegan wrote in 2019 that the Wikinews model of requiring approval before publication ultimately limited its ability to grow, especially compared to the more open nature of Wikipedia.[28]

Thomas Roessing wrote in The International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies in 2019 about journalism on Wikipedia and Wikinews: "Many people turn to Wikipedia for more information after they received news from the mass media ... There is a substantial danger of havoc resulting from hasty handling of information about an unfolding situation."[29] Roessing presents the issue of a "citation cycle", where professional journalists turn to Wikipedia for research, but the Wikipedia community goes to mass media sources for breaking news articles. Roessing writes about the problem of differentiating Wikipedia and Wikinews: "The quality and the speed in which Wikipedia responds to news is one of the challenges to Wikinews."[29] Additionally, Roessing refers to an analogy made by author Matthew Yeomans: "Usually, Wikinews retells stories that were first published by Internet outlets of the traditional mass media (which also serve as sources for Wikinews' articles). This tends to result in "dull regurgitation of facts" as Yeomans (2005) put it."[29][30]

Language editions

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As of December 2024, there are Wikinews sites for 36 languages of which 31 are active and 5 are closed.[5] The active sites have 1,760,070 articles and the closed sites have 2,151 articles.[6] There are 3,352,566 registered users of which 703 are recently active.[6]

The top ten Wikinews language projects by mainspace article count:[31]

No. Language Wiki Articles Total Pages Edits Admins Users Active users Files
1 Russian ru 1,496,507 13,983,136 16,734,035 8 58,389 86 17
2 Serbian sr 53,091 81,077 3,165,942 6 6,753 9 0
3 Portuguese pt 33,359 74,994 573,559 6 29,355 35 62
4 French fr 23,942 81,092 887,597 8 54,922 48 1
5 English en 22,059 2,903,916 4,826,805 18 2,882,371 149 3,849
6 Polish pl 20,767 62,046 344,301 6 20,932 43 1,254
7 Chinese zh 17,951 45,624 261,798 7 36,943 25 1
8 German de 13,972 62,224 850,247 6 34,960 36 65
9 Spanish es 12,244 49,656 714,806 10 46,717 27 0
10 Italian it 12,107 43,198 987,185 4 28,660 25 115

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Siedlecki, Dariusz (September 20, 2005). "[Wikinews-l] The Wikinews Licensure Poll is closed". Wikinews-l (Mailing list). Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  2. ^ Glasner, Joanna (November 29, 2004). "Wikipedia Creators Move Into News". Wired. Archived from the original on June 7, 2007. Retrieved April 21, 2007.
  3. ^ a b c Weiss, Aaron (February 10, 2005). "The Unassociated Press". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 15, 2009. Retrieved July 26, 2021.
  4. ^ "Wikinews:Original reporting". Wikinews. Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original on December 23, 2022. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  5. ^ a b c d "Data:Wikipedia statistics/meta.tab". Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  6. ^ a b c "Data:Wikipedia statistics/data.tab – Wikimedia Commons". Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  7. ^ a b c Eloquence. "User:Eloquence/History - The history of Wikinews and my role in it". Wikinews. Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original on October 15, 2012. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  8. ^ "Talk:Wikinews/Archive". Wikimedia Meta-Wiki. Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original on July 15, 2022. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  9. ^ "User:Fonzy - Revision as of 08:16, August 1, 2003". Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. August 1, 2003. Archived from the original on August 5, 2022. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  10. ^ "Wikinews: Difference between revisions - Revision as of 18:39, November 9, 2005". Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. November 9, 2005. Archived from the original on September 15, 2022. Retrieved February 5, 2023. Yes, I did make that anonymous post, I am not glory seeking, just getting the facts straight. Wikews was a terrible name I admit :p
  11. ^ a b "Wikinews/Vote". Wikimedia Meta-Wiki. Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original on January 27, 2023. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  12. ^ "wikinews.org whois lookup". who.is. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  13. ^ a b "Wikinews switches to Creative Commons license". Wikinews. Wikimedia Foundation. September 25, 2005. Archived from the original on May 12, 2013.
  14. ^ "English Wikinews publishes 10000th article". Wikinews. Wikimedia Foundation. September 7, 2007. Archived from the original on August 5, 2022. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  15. ^ a b Jones, K.C. (January 14, 2008). "Wikinews Gets Big Interview: Israeli President Shimon Peres". Information Week. Archived from the original on October 22, 2021. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  16. ^ Rose, Adam (January–February 2009). "The Wikinews Ace: Why Shimon Peres sat down with David Shankbone". Columbia Journalism Review. Archived from the original on May 9, 2012. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  17. ^ Asper, Colleen (April 2008). "David Shankbone with Colleen Asper". The Brooklyn Rail. Archived from the original on April 23, 2008. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  18. ^ "Wikinews interviews: Tony Benn on U.K. politics". Wikinews. August 12, 2007. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  19. ^ "Eric Bogosian on writing and the creative urge". Wikinews. April 17, 2008. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  20. ^ "Nick Smith responds to claims he is New Zealand's worst behaved politician". Wikinews. January 8, 2007. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  21. ^ "Exclusive video interview with New Zealand Opposition leader, John Key". Wikinews. May 23, 2007. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  22. ^ "Wikinews interviews World Wide Web co-inventor Robert Cailliau". Wikinews. August 16, 2007. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  23. ^ "RuPaul speaks about society and the state of drag as performance art". Wikinews. October 6, 2007. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  24. ^ "Interview with Sue Gardner of the Wikimedia Foundation". Wikinews. October 24, 2007. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  25. ^ "Interview with Sue Gardner of the Wikimedia Foundation", Wikinews; October 24, 2007.
  26. ^ Dee, Jonathan (July 1, 2007). "All the News That's Fit to Print Out". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 22, 2011. Retrieved December 31, 2007.
  27. ^ a b Seward, Zachary M. (February 8, 2010). "Why Wikipedia beats Wikinews as a collaborative journalism project". Nieman Journalism Lab. Nieman Foundation for Journalism. Archived from the original on January 7, 2015. Retrieved January 22, 2015.
  28. ^ Keegan, Brian (2019). "An Encyclopedia with Breaking News". Wikipedia @ 20 : stories of an incomplete revolution (PDF). Joseph M., Jr. Reagle, Jackie L. Koerner. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-36059-3. OCLC 1187209148.
  29. ^ a b c Roessing, Thomas (May 14, 2019). Vos, Tim P.; Hanusch, Folker; Dimitrakopoulou, Dimitra; Geertsema-Sligh, Margaretha; Sehl, Annika (eds.). The International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies (1 ed.). Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781118841570.iejs0183. ISBN 978-1-118-84167-9. S2CID 186898987.
  30. ^ Yeomans, Matthew (April 28, 2005). "The Birth of Wikinews". Citizens Kane. Blogspot. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  31. ^ Wikimedia's MediaWiki API:Siteinfo. Retrieved December 2024 from Data:Wikipedia statistics/data.tab
[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Wikinews.
Meta has related information at: Wikinews
Wikibooks has more on the topic of: Wikinews
Wikiversity has learning resources about Wikinews
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