The New York Times used Geralyn Shukwit's photos, in addition to local blogs, to cover the collapse of a building in Fort Greene. Click on the image to see this and other images taken by Shukwit.
The recent collapse of a residential building in Fort Greene, a neighborhood in New York City, was a stark example of the New York Times heavily employing the use of citizen journalism on its blogs.
It’s difficult for me to consider citizen journalism without thinking of the failure of Wikinews to become anything that has long-term potential. The model of Wikinews is fundamentally flawed, and there appears to be no desire to fix it. Wikipedia, as Wikimedia Foundation executive director Sue Gardner herself said, is now fulfilling a role as a mainstream news medium. Gardner essentially crapped on any hope Wikinews would receive much support from the foundation.
The New York Times use of citizen journalism is really the way things will go. Electronic eye-witnesses (aka “citizen journalists”) and the mainstream media are currently undergoing a courtship and eventual marriage. Media organizations have an incentive for this: it makes their product more enmeshed in the communities they cover and serve, and makes those communities more invested in their local papers.
Wikinews has taken the wrong approach: they are little more than an aggregator of rehashed mainstream media stories that are covered in more depth, and updated more quickly, on Wikipedia. A notable exception to this on Wikinews is Mike Halterman’s interviews, amongst a few other stand-outs; however, three or four original reporters aren’t going to save the site. With the mainstream organizations encouraging citizens to contribute to their product more, and the Wikimedia Foundation and community giving up on separating “news” items out of its encyclopedia articles, it’s difficult to see the need for Wikinews as it is now.
It’s too bad. If the Wikimedia community saw the benefits of Wikinews, and if the Wikinewsies themselves were more intent on changing the nature of that project, it would be more relevant. Neither scenario seems likely.
If anything, the New York Times is teaching Wikinews how citizen journalism should be done by websites: search out the citizens who are covering the events and encourage them to contribute. Wikinewsies expect people to come to them. But they don’t. They go to Wikipedia. Now they’ll also go to the New York Times et al. Those organizations are far more exciting for the average citizen journalist to contribute to than Wikinews.
Wikipedia photos to be deleted
NYC Wedding March – September 26, 2010
Joaquin Phoenix is a poser
Flushing Meadow Corona Park skate park
East Village Park and Williamsburg Bridge photos
100 People I Photographed for the Creative Commons
Pakistan flood devastation statistics
Cordoba House / Ground Zero mosque protest photos
The void in my blogging (and some photos)
Rihanna video with Eminem about Chris Brown?
what do you think some of the steps to take to “fix” wikinews would be, either on a project or foundation level? It’s difficult to actively guide contributors to a project, and we have a pretty well established hands-off policy for project content.
Twitter: davidshankbone
says:
Phoebe, I was trying to think of how to succinctly state the problems that need to be addressed, but I think it comes down to marketing Wikinews to the Wikipedia community, and changing the insular culture of Wikinews so that they do not have so much antipathy toward Wikipedia.
One role I have always thought was good for Wikinews is as a place where Original Research for Wikipedia could be conducted, and then used on Wikipedia. I argued for that here. People could write articles specifically to clear up problems, or fill voids, in mainstream coverage of a topic. The Wikinews OR article would need to pass some kind of “Wikipedia-grade” criteria, and Wikipedia would also need to be up for having these articles as sources – there is a need for Wikipedia-specific OR.
Wikipedians becoming Wikinewsies to fix voids or problems in mainstream coverage would vastly increase the editor traffic to Wikinews, and it would also make them a place where original, one-of-its-kind reporting would take place (ostensibly because people would go there to fix problems in mainstream coverage).
It would take such a push on both projects, but this is one big improvement that could be assisted by the Foundation.
This answer is to what I see as the fundamental question plaguing Wikinews: How to make it relevant to something, somewhere.
Your point about citizens as journalists is so on target. I have long felt that the internet was making the world a much smaller place. I’ve often wondered how World War II would have gone down if the internet had been around back then. Secrets are a lot more difficult to keep nowadays.
And lo and behold, CNN now has a whole section dedicated to citizen journalism in Iran (and probably other places as well, but I’ve been checking the Iran posts with great fascination). Where professional journalists cannot go in Iran the citizens of that country and taking great risks to document their own story and get it to us.
Wikinews would be a fantastic vehicle for stories like the ones in Iran, or other stories that are not easily accessible to mainstream, professional journalists.
Twitter: davidshankbone
says:
Thanks Sam. Iran has been fascinating to watch, and in particular all the social networking sites, and how they are becoming news broadcasters in their own right.
David, I agree with most of what you say here. I think how Wikinews works should be re-thought from scratch, with the goal of creating a system that will attract enough contributors to make it viable, which means making it much easier to contribute.
Part of the problem is, once Wikinews articles are published, it’s too late to contribute. Wikipedia benefits from people coming to pages in the wake of uncertain breaking news to get the up-to-date synopsis, and sticking around to make improvements. The Wikinews system is built to hide work in progress and publish finished work; that’s just not a viable model for volunteer-driven content where the readers are the contributors. NYT has the right idea… a hub for organizing and curating the wild and diverse range of spontaneous citizen journalism that crops up during large-scale events and goins-on, rather than a place where citizen journalists have to come to in order to have their reports seen.
You don’t say much to specify how the Foundation could assist with this, but one thing I think should have happened at the start of Wikinews (and probably Wikisource and Wiktionary as well) would have been to have those projects as separate namespaces within Wikipedia rather than separate wikis. Even if it’s mostly psychological, the jump from Wikipedia to Wikinews is so wide that it really hinders cooperation; it shouldn’t be even cooperation, it should be just different aspects of the same big community project. I don’t think it’s too late to re-integrate, although given the inevitable community strife it would cause, I doubt the Foundation would be willing to push something like that forward.
Twitter: davidshankbone
says:
Sage, we should get a panel together at the Wikiconference to discuss these kinds of issues about cross-project collaboration and usage.
Funny, because I followed Michael Jackson’s illness and then death all on facebook tonight. Haikuku already has it up.
David, that’s a good idea but I don’t think I’m up for it this time around; we already have the other panel, plus I’m doing a lightning talk. But we should definitely try to get a conversation on the topic going sometime during the conference.