Wikileaks and how it is Journalism

For those of you who don't know what Wikileaks is, no it is not a part of Wikipedia, but it is a news source that usually leaks out classified documents and information.  Wikileaks is a not for profit (yet they make a profit through donations) organization who provides a secure and anonymous way to bring information and leaked documents.  Their journalists take these documents and verify them, after this they will write an editorial about the leaked information.

What separates Wikileaks from general news sources is that along with an editorial about the documents they also include a link to the original source material that way the reader can go and read the source of the story as they wish and form their own opinions based on all of the raw information available.  Since they also don't make a profit they are not motivated by profit thus creating a new model for journalism.  Also they publish all of their raw materials and leaked information on their website for all to see thus sharing information with everyone allowing for the flow of information to be relatively free, and they work off of other media outlets as well as other media outlets using wikileaks as a source under the belief that information should always be shared and people should work together to share information to as many people as possible.

One of their most famous stories is that of an American Apache helicopter attacking 15 people in Iraq including 2 Reuters reporters who unfortunately died in the attack.  In the link above, they state that the government says that wikileaks is a threat to national security, yet they broke the story with journalism in a slightly different way.  I would suggest to see the video from wikileaks because they include the full version completely unedited.  In the story on Wikileaks we see a mixture of traditional journalism with an editorial creating a certain frame of the story with the title and the editorial itself.  We also see the full unedited original video of the Apache helicopter.  This gives the reader the chance to create their own opinions but also there is a framing that happens since there is a story being written by it and since that action is occurring then a frame will always be created.

I think that Wikileaks is going in the right direction by adding to the traditional aspects of journalism and improving it.  it will be interesting to see how this type of journalism will change the way people consume information and send information.

read the story here and see for yourself

Wikipedia Woes

When I was growing up, there was always one thing that my teachers kept telling their students, “Don’t use Wikipedia as a source for your paper!” Considering the fact that I had no idea what Wikipedia was and did not understand why my teachers were so adamant about not allowing us to use it, I was very confused. Later, I discovered, that most, if not all, people know now, Wikipedia can be edited by individuals who have no authority in the subject matter or any professional background of posting information on the website. I understand now why my teachers were so concerned. The fact remains that you cannot believe everything that you see and read on the Internet. Not all information is true, especially on Wikipedia. When searching for specific subjects, I have come across multiple Wikipedia entries for the same search, one with tons of information and the other with just the basic introduction. And not all the facts that were stated were accurate. It is interesting to see the restrictions that Wikipedia has put on certain entries so they do not become vandalized. The fact that vandalism has taken the next step into cyber-space is somewhat terrifying. Once it’s on the Internet, sure it can be monitored and corrected, but it will never truly go away. With Wikipedia, we are giving citizens too much power; the power of knowledge, truth, lies, and deceit. Wikipedia is a dangerous tool that people can take advantage of and manipulate under their own will. Yes, there are people monitoring the pages but they cannot take care of all the factual discrepancies that exist throughout the entire Wikipedia realm of information. I think that Wikipedia should be left to the professionals and not the citizens. Only then will it be perceived as an appropriate source of information rather than one to be avoided. 

The Viability of Wikinews

In Paul Bradshaw's article entitled Wiki Journalism, Bradshaw refers to the Wikimedia Foundation's user-generated news site Wikinews. As the article states, Wikinews is intended to be a user-generated news site, featuring journalistic content cross-checked by users and freely open, in some ways, to editing by the public.

Wikinews Logo, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

According to the site, the English-language version of Wikinews has over 18,600 articles. Unlike Wikipedia, however, the English-language version of Wikinews does not take the lead in article counts. In fact, the Russian-language version of the site has over 68,000 articles, a substantially larger number than the English version. This perhaps gives a general idea of the site's popularity, or lack thereof, among English-speaking users.

In order to demonstrate the difference in styles between Wikipedia and Wikinews, one can do a quick comparison of two articles featuring similar content. To start, we can look at Wikipedia's article on the 2011 Norway attacks. This article follows a general encyclopedia format, starting with a summary of events, and diving into further details with multiple sections spanning the entirety of the subject at hand. Though many events are linked to a particular date and time, the writing itself comes across as more of a secondary history of the subject matter, rather than direct reporting of events as a primary source.

This is countered with one of many seemingly in-the-moment style articles on the Wikinews site that were published as the attacks occurred, and in subsequent days as events progressed. In this example of an article written as events were unfolding, one immediately notices that it is dated upfront as being published on July 23, 2011, essentially establishing this content as locked in time. This is contrasted, however, to the main Wikipedia article on the attacks, which reflects a continuous effort to update the content rather than locking it into a particular notion of time and date.

Furthermore, one might take a look at a pending article to gain insight into the publication process. In this article on the "Norwegian mass murderer trial," one can find a list of edits to the article, which demonstrates the collaborative process that goes into writing such a piece. However, at the time of this writing, the article itself is still undergoing a "pre-publication review" process, in which qualified reviewers act almost as editors in the publication process.

Regardless of its ability to act as a legitimate and thorough news source, sites like Wikinews are still inherently dependent on the users in order to properly function. If users are not interested in the process of writing journalistic articles, then the site will continue to exist outside of the knowledge of the general public.

Wiki Journalism

In "Wiki Journalism" Paul Bradshaw discusses wikis, "…Web based applications that allow multiple authors to add, remove, and edit content in a process of collaborative authoring." (241). Wikis have been known for hosting project plans, encyclopedia entries, scientific research, and much citizen journalism. Although there are some very amateur wikis, theres are some that are quite legitimate through monitoring. Wikinews for example, requires that sources be cited and verifiable and that field notes must be presented in terms of reporting. With all the benefits of wikis, even mainstream new organizations have begun to use them internally. Multiple journalists are able to collaborate, access, and edit information at once, create dialogue, and translate articles to and from other languages. One of the most controversial aspects of wikis, is that of user-generated content or citizen journalism. People are able to post their opinions, ideas, and knowledge of a subject and in some cases edit what is already written. This can be seen as a positive when the content is accurate, however it is very common for material to be biased or straight out wrong. I once had a professor that was an extreme opposer of using wikis as sources for our papers and craved to make his point about why they are an illegitimate source. After handing out the prompt for a paper, he looked up the subject on wikipedia and wrote a bunch of nonsense about it that was completely irrelevant and inaccurate to see if any students would use the information in their papers. After grading, he said a surprising amount of what he wrote had reappeared in his students' work- noting that a few days later his strange edits to the wiki had been removed and the original version was restored. With the 5 different kinds of wikis, from second-draft, to crowd sourcing, supplementary, open, and logistical, there is no doubt that they are beneficial resources, but hold weaknesses in terms of vandalism and inaccuracy.