Search results
Apr 24, 2017 · Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, is set to launch a community-driven online news service in response to the widespread distribution of deliberately misleading information masquerading as...
April 24, 2017. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is the latest tech leader to try his hand at solving the fake news problem. Wales on Monday launched an ad-free news service called...
Apr 24, 2017 · While the site is launching as the UK general election campaign begins, Wales said the idea came after he saw what had happened in the US and how fake news had helped Donald Trump into...
- Overview
- New news
- Crowd-funded media
- Broken news
- Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox
News
By Andrew London
published 25 April 2017
Jimmy Wales aims to establish a 'factual and neutral' news source
Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is no stranger to bucking a trend. When Wikipedia launched it was in direct competition with the online edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, and the smart money would have been on Britannica, with a solid track record stretching all the way back to the 1700s and a business model that worked: information written by professionals, and purchased by users.
Wikipedia, by contrast, offered a free-to-access, crowd-sourced information model, with a seemingly endless sprawl of information curated by thousands of editors, and a questionable business model – yet it emerged the victor.
The first is the current rise of ‘fake news’. With Facebook, Twitter and Google all taking steps to fight the rise of news stories created to manipulate people, it's an issue that's being taken increasingly seriously.
The second is the current business model that online media operates within. With advertising driving revenue, media companies can get into a situation where the desire for site visits leads to the proliferation of ‘clickbait’ articles and headlines, making money for the company at the expense of the user.
The third is a growing trend of users showing that they're willing to pay for what they consider to be reliable and good quality news, with Guardian and New York Times subscriptions proving a strong business model for online news.
The last of these is especially interesting as it’s pretty much the opposite of what created Wikipedia's success, with the idea of a paid competitor potentially beating a free one. But at this point, the currency that seems more valuable to Wales is truth.
Although using the Wiki brand, Wikitribune is an independent project from Wales, not affiliated with Wikipedia or the Wikipedia Foundation, and the move makes sense. In 2004 the Wiki group launched Wikinews, a news site that ran on the same model as Wikipedia – crowd-sourced, free-to-access information.
Wikitribune will follow a more traditional journalistic model in terms of the way it's run, with professional journalists writing the stories, working under an editor.
Where it becomes interesting is the role that the editor has in the framework. Whereas in a traditional publication the editor is the one responsible for shaping the ‘voice’ of the output through the selection of what subjects are going to be covered, in the Wikitribune model the users will have a greater hand in dictating the output, relegating the editor to “more a management role than editorial vision or pursuing an agenda”, according to Wales.
If a large number of subscribers are interested in a specific topic, a journalist gets hired to handle that topic. It makes sense editorially. The difficulty is that it’s fairly easy to picture such a publication becoming an echo-chamber, with users only getting the news that they want to get – not great if the whole purpose of your publication is neutral, factual news.
It will be interesting to see how the model works, as journalists will only be hired based on the amount of subs getting paid in each month. So not only do we not know what the output of Wikitribune would be, we don’t even know how much output there would be.
“We're getting people to sign up as monthly supporters, and the more monthly supporters we have the more journalists we can hire,” Wales added. “In terms of minimums, if we could only hire two journalists then it would be a blog and not really worth doing. But I would love to start with a lot more – 10 to 20.”
So it’s early days yet, but with Wales at the helm, and advisors ranging from model and actress Lily Cole to US law professor Larry Lessig and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki, Wikitribune certainly has the foundations for something very exciting.
The trial version of the site claims “the news is broken and we can fix it”. It's a bold claim, and we'll be interested to see if it can deliver on its promise.
Get the hottest deals available in your inbox plus news, reviews, opinion, analysis and more from the TechRadar team.
Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors
From Wikitribune to StopFake: the battle against fake news. Jimmy Wales has launched a new site and Google is changing its algorithm – but they’re not the only ones offering innovative...
Apr 13, 2018 · In 2017, Wales turned his attention to a new project, “WikiTribune”, a news website, which was set up to promote what it calls “evidence-based journalism” in an attempt to combat fake news.
Apr 25, 2017 · Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales hopes to tackle fake news with a journalism outfit of his own. Wikitribune will be free to access and use crowdfunding to hire experienced reporters....
