IN WHAT COULD BE hailed as the ultimate example of participatory jourmalism, the Wikinews project is live and its news items are representative of global events. The Wikinews stories provide a timely and often peer-reviewed take on current events.
Certainly the major wire services will be annoyed because several of the news articles have to be using mainstream reporters as their source. The attribution is often missing.
I wonder whether unreviewed stories should be published on the front page. It's also a question the organisers are asking the viewers. It's going to be ropy if any kind of review process is implemented outside that of the normal wiki review philosophy.
The jury is still out on whether wikinews can work. For me, it has to have an RSS feed or it's not on my radar scope. For JD Lasica, it's an element of participatory media. I think the mainstream web world will be dismissive of using wikinews as a trusted source (think Slashdot).
Wikinews is http://demo.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page but it's moving.
John Mello -- "Open-Source News? Wiki Builds a New Kind of Journalism"
Joanna Glasner -- "Wikipedia Creators Move into News"
JD Lasica -- "Can wikis build a new kind of journalism?"
Slashdot: Are Blogs the Future of Journalism? "Let's hope not."
Bonus Link: Heather James, introducing wikis to the uninitiated.
