[WikiEN-l] NY Times Magazine on Wikipedia

[Stephen Bain]

On 7/12/07, Rory Stolzenberg <rory096 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/1/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
> >
> > I suppose we could redirect all articles on current events to Wikinews.
> > What we are doing with that type of article is about the same as CNN. They
> > throw in a bit of original reporting, but mostly just comb other media and
> > repeat it. Would Wikinews put up with that?
>
> Isn't that mostly what Wikinews does? I don't think it's mostly original
> reporting.

In the article, Dee makes the observation that many have made that
Wikipedia's treatment of news, particularly with major stories like
the London Tube bombings for example, is to give the big picture
overview as opposed to traditional news media which give a collection
of articles telling pieces of the story at a time, from different
angles. A Wikipedia article on a news story will aim to speak with a
single voice (the neutral point of view) whereas news media will offer
different treatments of the subject in each little piece that they
give (the cumulative effect is often the same, of course).

Wikinews is there to do that latter type of reporting, the type that
traditional news media does, telling individual pieces of the story,
while the former is properly left to Wikipedia. It's the lack of a
critical mass of participants on Wikinews which means that both types
are sometimes included in Wikipedia.

-- 
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com