On 08/07/2005, at 6:02 AM, Amgine wrote:
3. Wikinews can balance 3a and 3b, and has done an
admirable job of
doing so. However, it is important for editors to avoid focusing
attention on doing "hard news"; Wikinews cannot (and should not try
to) compete with main stream news media, and should play to its
strengths of many people rather than big stories.
I don't at all want to get into the bigger debate, but given what we
just achieved last night doing "hard news" I'd hate to say we think
we can't compete with "mainstream news media". We and Wikipedia had
more accurate information online about the London bombs faster than
just about any other service I saw. Sure, we had some moments where
the page looked like a mess as multiple people tried to solve logical
problems of how to deal with so much information quickly, but those
messes lasted about a minute as people realised what was happening
and backed off.
It was an incredible experience, sitting here in Australia
transcribing texts from press conferences that were airing, updating
them and having someone else anonymously on the other side of the
world add a headline and amend my 'spokesperson' to the correct name
of the police representative.
We can do hard news and we should aim to compete with the mainstream
news outlets.
Why on earth not?
phoenix
(just my $0.02)
--
"If you think you're too small to make a difference, try sleeping
with a mosquito" -- Dalai Lama