WikiNews

If you don't know about WikiNews, you've got to learn about it. The journalists at WikiNews very much have the spirit of We Are The News. Here is the link to their home page:

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page

I see the Google Page Rank of their home page today is 6/10 and their Alexa Traffic Rank is 12,411. Those are pretty good numbers, especially the traffic ranking.

The WikiNews people have developed their sense of purpose over time. Initially, they published a manifesto. Here is an excerpt from that manifesto:

We seek to promote the idea of the citizen journalist, because we believe that everyone can make a useful contribution to painting the big picture of what is happening in the world around us. The time has come to create a free news source, by the people and for the people. At the moment, only a small minority of us can participate, but you are free to help us find practical methods of crossing this digital divide. We invite you to join us in this effort which has the potential to change the world forever. excerpted from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews_manifesto accessed 2/20/09

Subsequently, the manifesto was revised to the following Mission Statement:

Wikinews seeks to create a free source of news, where every human being is invited to contribute reports about events large and small, either from direct experience, or summarized from elsewhere.

While Wikinews aims to be a useful resource of its own, it will also provide an alternative to proprietary news agencies like the Associated Press or Reuters; that is, it will allow independent media outfits to get a high quality feed of news free of charge to complement their own reporting.

Wikinews follows key principles which have made Wikipedia and other Wikimedia websites what they are today: neutrality, free content, and an open decision making process. from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews#Mission_statement accessed 2/20/09

The current Mission Statement at WikiNews reads as follows:

To present up-to-date, relevant, newsworthy and entertaining content without bias

Wikinews promotes the idea of participatory journalism because of the belief that citizens know what is news like no others. You are invited to join in this effort, and share news that is of interest to you.

The Wikinews project is a free content news source of the Wikimedia Foundation that seeks to provide content where everyone is invited to contribute reports about events large and small, either from direct experience, or summarized from elsewhere. Wikinews is founded on the idea to build a unique news environment to enrich the media landscape.

Wikinews' use extends beyond original reports, by providing free, neutral, integrated summaries of the news from elsewhere. It will already be useful even if the subject range covered will be full of gaps—because in these subject areas, we will already benefit from the collaborative wiki model. It will grow to become more useful every day.

While Wikinews aims to one day be a useful resource of its own, it will also provide an alternative to proprietary news agencies like the Associated Press or Reuters; that is, it will allow independent media outfits to get a high quality feed of news free of charge to complement their own reporting. Thanks to copyleft, anyone can create their own free news source—even a non-neutral one—on the basis of this work.

There are many challenges. Wikinews adopted the key principles that made Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia websites what they are today: neutral, free content and open decision-making processes. from http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews accessed 2/20/09

The citizen journalist (i.e., you, me and everyone else with access to the internet) can learn from WikiNews how to prepare an article for publication at WikiNews by reading their page at http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Writing_an_article.

And now you know something about WikiNews!