Amended:
--- steve v vertigosteve@yahoo.com wrote:
Wikinews on the other hand, has largely remained just an experiment in 'throwing wiki software at the news org idea'. It was bound to fail without some sincere rethinking of the software and how it works, andmany had commented a long time ago that some other...
...major rethinking needed to be done on the project. Indymedia for example has a niche, which some claim is driven by the POV entrenchment of core editors, but as Darin pointed out, such a niche is is in fact no different that why Fox News has succeeded commercially etc, or why the concept of 'Independent media' (ie. free media, open media, non-commercial media) are dominantly leftist and egalitarian. Philosophy in fact drives newsorgs, regardless of the editorial striving for objectivity.
If you look at your average local newspapers and their histories, theyve gone through an early period where they catered to businesses (gain startup revenue, establish clientele) -- later trying to move toward an actual community sensibility: But rarely they move toward an altruistic or egalitarian philosophy, because egalitarianism and capitalism repel each other like magnets, in the same way that commercial ads and editorial policy converge like magnets. Every newsorg has to find a balance between the push and pull that makes these work. Just to be clear though, Fox News has thus far been 'successful' because the U.S. has a large mentally retarted population.
SV
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