First, there was Wikipedia – the volunteer-powered encyclopedia that is “about as far from the traditional idea of an encyclopedia as you can get”, as Simon Waldman puts it in today’s Guardian.
Next, could there be Wikinews?
“We seek 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. Wikinews is founded on the idea that we want to create something new, rather than destroy something old. It is founded on the belief that we can, together, build a great and unique resource which will enrich the media landscape.”
It’s an interesting idea, although I can see a few problems the effort will need to overcome. First, news is perishable – the process of collaboratively assembling a report might take too long (although the Wikipedia experience shows that, with enough people, even a mammoth effort like that can move quickly).
A second worry might be the fact that the blogosphere, bounded together by Technorati and the likes, is having a go at the distributed citizen news thing already, and that system might be more responsive.
A third worry might be the same things thrown at Wikipedia by professional encyclopedia makers, and librarians, namely: “but how can you trust it?” But Wikipedia’s already proved a point on that front. And with cynicism towards journalists generally somewhat higher than that directed at librarians, the public’s readiness to trust the new source might be just a little higher.
Bottom to top…
Trust: My guess is people will know how much to trust wikinews, and regard it accordingly.
The blogosphere: Absolutely. Blogs are the eye witness of accounts of news big and small. Well, mostly small, but a few big. Though I can’t see anyone being able to give a first hand account of a really terrific story and posting it to wikinews, when they could sell their story to the Daily Mail (or get a job there) instead.
Perishable: Now that’s really interesting. Wikipedia works well in part because people have time to get it right. And there’s another successful model: open source software – collaboration on something durable. News doesn’t pass the durability test. But there must be other candidates that are durable… how do fancy starting a wikiart project?