[Foundation-l] Wikinews is giving out press credentials

[Jean-Baptiste Soufron]

Once again, there is no way Wikinews can issue "press pass" today.

If wikinews wishes to issue some accreditation or whatever, why not... but

As I explain, this should lead the Foundation to become responsible for 
the content of Wikinews.

As a lawyer and a journalist, I have the following points to stress out :

First, if these accreditations are denounced as false press pass, the 
foundation will be liable in many countries for that. The policy might 
well explain that Wikinews does not supercede national laws or whatever, 
but national journalist unions will certainly think otherwise and they 
can pretty much sue the Foundation for that.

Second, if there is any wrongdoing made by someone with an accredited 
pass, the Foundation will now be liable for it. I mean its liability 
will come first, even before the liability of the author of the article. 
This is a famous mechanism meant to protect journalists : instead of 
pursuing them, it is mandatory to sue their editors first. And if we 
accreditate people, we will be assimilated to editors, becoming liable 
at first.

And this leads to my third and more important point. Accreditating 
people will transform the Foundation from being a publisher to becoming 
an editor... which means that we will now be liable for any content 
written on the website by anyone else.

Are you sure that the Foundation is ready to become liable for anything 
written on Wikinews ?

If yes, I think this would be a major change of the Foundation policy.

Jean-Baptiste Soufron, Legal Officer

PS : Also, the name wikinews is not yet a registered trademark and it 
should not be said so until its registration actually ended.

Daniel Mayer wrote:
> --- Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Would the policy at
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews_accreditation_policy settle
>> this situation? It requires accreditation policies to be approved by
>> the Board before press badges can say "Wikinews".
> 
> Absolutely brilliant! That is exactly what I wanted. Thank you Angela! :) 
> 
> -- mav
> 
> 
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