I was accredited as a Wikinews reporter by the World Trade Organization for their Hong Kong conference in December 2005. They tend to use US-style accrediting of reporters, which is a bit less stringent than what you normally see.
I had to show some previous clips, show that I was accredited on en.wikinews.org, and then fax in a letter to "request" accreditation from one of the editors of the organization. Since there really is no "organization" I said that I was one of the editors, and they just said for me to FAX something in myself. I did, and I was accredited.
Press pass results: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuzheado/73344132/
-Andrew
On 4/24/07, bawolff bawolff+wn@gmail.com wrote:
See also: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Accreditation_policy and http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews_accreditation_policy
As far as accredited photographer, on english wikinews its mixed opinion as to what to do. I personally think That it should be coordinated with commons. We had a bunch of commoners apply for accreditation without ever contributing to wikinews, and most of them got rejected (all except [[user:Gmaxwell]] i believe/ Mostly because it felt wrong to give someone who is only there for the accreditation, the accreditation).
On a side note, we had one accredited photographer who actively contributed to wikinews [[User:Aselman]], as well as Zannium semi-hiring John Mueller ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Academy_Awards_afterparty_CUN_Blu_Ca... )
-bawolff On 4/23/07, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
I think we have had this accreditation conversation already, I can't remember where (foundation-l? wikinews-l?) or when. Sorry.
The answer is very simple: For those countries where accreditation is a legal matter (France is one of them), the Foundation, or the chapters, cannot and will not give this accreditation.
For those countries where the whole accreditation process is more open, then it could be imagined that the Wikinews community recognize some people as "wiki journalists" or something.
Please remember that as soon as the organisation "endorses" any person to contribute content to the projects, it puts itself in a "publisher" kind of position, which we need to avoid at all costs, since the organisation is *not* a publisher.
Delphine
On 4/23/07, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
2007/4/23, Guillaume Paumier guillom.pom@gmail.com:
Hello,
Last week-end there was the first round of the French presidential election. People from Wikimedia France have been working hard to attend meetings of the candidates to take plenty of photos of them and other politicians or artists supporting them. Wikimedia France has even issued a press release : < http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CP_Couverture_%C3%A9lection%3E and < http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:French_presidential_election_%282... (browse the subcategories).
To get an official press card in France, more than 50% of your total income must come from your activities as a journalist or photographer < http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carte_de_presse_en_France%3E. Photographers and reporters from Wikimedia projects can obviously not get this precious pass. Though, an accreditation letter from an institution (along with a professional camera and a big amount of self-confidency) can be enough.
I know the English-language Wikinews provides such accreditations for reporters. The French-language one doesn't. We have been forced to contact each party and request temporary press passes for each meeting. Although we are very proud of what we have accomplished, it would be great if we had some accreditation letters as photographers. Should they come from Wikinews? Commons? Dunno.
Browsing through the archives of Wikinews Water cooler, I have found this discussion : http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy/Archive/15#Accredit...
Has there been any follow-up about this issue? If not, could we work on it?
It seems to me that the accreditation can only be done by a legal entity, and thus the accreditor at least formally should be the Wikimedia Foundation or its French chapter. Of course they could leave the decision as to who to actually completely dependent on the advise by Commons or Wikinews or whatever. For PR reasons I think it would be good to have 'Wikipedia' written on the accreditations (along with Wikinews and Commons, and of course the WMF) - It's much better known than the other projects, and thus could give an air of seriousness to the user that otherwise he would not have.
-- Andre Engels, andreengels@gmail.com ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
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