On Apr 17, 2008, at 6:56 AM, wikinews-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:

Yeah but we need to step away from being identified with Wikipedia,

because we are not them. We need our own punch line and really should

not have to mention Wikipedia to make us sound better, although I do see

what you mean. I think a list or RSS of a sort would work perfectly. We

just need subscribers.

Jason

I am very late to this discussion, which I assume has been going on for a while in other forms and other places, but I think it is a big mistake for Wikinews to try to distance itself from Wikipedia. I guess I understand the resentment or whatever it is that Wikipedia is this kind of black hole that sucks in all media attention and conversation..... but that's a good thing isn't it? It seems that some in Wikinews want to be more like CNN than Wikipedia. Why? It seems to me wikinews could play a profound role in the participatory journalism landscape if it worked with Wikipedia rather than trying to separate itself from it. To that end the suggestions about supplying original reporting to enhance Wikipedia content would be critical. Imagine if you could routinely access the audio of an interview with the subject of an article from their Wikipedia article. This, as has also been mentioned, would go a long way to ameliorate one of Wikipedia's thorniest problems - biographies of living persons. That's one example. Supplying multimedia content, observation and comment from events also seems vital. "Journalist" has become a dicey word. Having been one myself for about 10 years and now teaching in a journalism school I see daily how it's being redefined. Lots of baggage comes with being a "journalist." It seems to me "content suppliers" as lame as that sounds is a better way to approach something like Wikinews.