17 October 2008

Getting journalist students to Wikinews

On Wikimedia projects, author credit is only given in the history tab. For most of the projects that makes perfect sense, because pages have lots and lots of different authors coming in at different times. However, for Wikinews that is not the case. Most of the time, articles on Wikinews are written by just one person, and then copy-edited and published. Not often does a Wikinews article actually have several authors.

Now, we know there are lots and lots of journalist students out there – and from what I gather from various TV series and movies, they are all “dying” to get their name “on print”. So why not let them do that on Wikinews? It does not have to be obtrusive; a mockup of what it could look like can be found here.

With Wikinews getting coverage in Google News, student journalists will probably be even more eager to get their name out there, and more inclined to join Wikinews. Sure, it’s working for free, but it gives you publicity. And all of these students are a vast resource that could multiply Wikinews’ coverage – the way I see it, the chance is too good to miss.

4 comments:

Pharos said...

There are literally thousands of journalism students who write Wikinews-compatible news articles as assignments, which are not published anywhere (or are published only in an obscure place).

We just have to connect with a few journalism professors, and we could really explode the scope of Wikinews contributorship.

Anonymous said...

A brilliant idea! I was at a demo not long ago, and (for some reason) there were many journalism students there, all running around trying (and, really, I do mean trying) to interview people. I asked them what they were going to do with the recordings and notes and finished articles, and they said it was just 'practice', and did I know of where (as in, which website -- of the protesters) they could post stuff.

I didn't say it, but will from now on: Wikinews.

Good idea.

Anonymous said...

Interesting idea. I was wondering what you were doing in your userspace. The only issue i could possibly see is that although a single author is more common, its generally not a goal. Having a by-line might discourage collaboration, which is something we want to encourage

Anyways, you should (if you havn't already) post this on [[n:WN:WC]] under proposals for wider discussion amongst the wikinews community.

-bawolff

Anonymous said...

A good idea. We at Swedish Wikinews actually were thinking about trying to get journalist students to Swedish Wikinews, but I do not think anyone came... And now Swedish Wikinews is very in active...