Hsing, thank you for your academic interest in Wikinews. A focus by academia on various
aspects of emerging media is sorely needed. You are doing a great service to society by
taking this project on.
I have a few concerns, though. Upon reading your letter, I am confused. It appears you may
be starting with a flawed premise.
Sites such as OhMyNews and Global Voices are neither news nor are they collaborative. They
are simply collections of blogs that are prone to flawed reporting due to opinion,
purposeful inaccuracy, fiction posing as fact and error through lack of news-gathering
ability of its writers.
I do hope you keep in mind the long tradition of Western-style news creation and reportage
(which Wikinews strives to accomplish) that requires third-party editing, a neutral point
of view with good-faith attempts at elimination of bias toward the subject matter and,
traditionally, a centralized system of well-reasoned story assignment and selection to
ensure broad and accurate reportage. Even Wikinews falls short in the ability for
well-reasoned story assignment since it is more haphazard in its approach to news.
----- Original Message -----
From: Hsing_Wei(a)ksg06.harvard.edu
To: wikinews-l(a)Wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikinews-l] Survey on Wikinews: Study on Collaborative News Models
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 09:59:08 -0500
Dear Members of the Wikinews community,
I'm a masters student in the Kennedy School at Harvard doing research on
collaborative news sites (such as OhMyNews, Global Voices, etc). Every few
months, new websites are cropping up with innovative ways of enabling and
engaging people in creating and sharing news content. This phenomenon has
sparked both enthusiasm and controversy.
I was hoping to get your perspectives as visitors and members on the
Wikinews site. To ease the process, I have a short, 5 minute survey set up
at either:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=887731774310 (email link)
or
<a
href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=887731774310">Click here to
take Wikinews survey</a> (website link)
In addition, I'm trying to reach as many readers and members of the
Wikinews community as possible. If it is possible to add the survey links
to your personal blogs, I would be most grateful for the help on furthering
this research. It is very much self-running once posted. Also, if there
is advice on how this survey might be posted for a few days on the Wikinews
frontpage, any tips would be great.
Please do not hestitate to contact me directly. Thanks!!
Sincerely,
Hsing
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