Wikinews#Criticism

File:Wikinews logo.svg

The first recorded proposal of a Wikimedia news site was a two-line anonymous post on January 5, 2003, on the Wikimedia community's Meta-Wiki.{{Cite news |last=Eloquence |title=User:Eloquence/History - The history of Wikinews and my role in it |url=https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Eloquence/History |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121015221058/http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Eloquence/History |archive-date=2012-10-15 |access-date=2023-02-05 |newspaper=Wikinews |publisher=Wikimedia Foundation}}{{Cite web |title=Talk:Wikinews/Archive |url=https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikinews/Archive |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220715185923/https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikinews/Archive&oldid=4306 |archive-date=2022-07-15 |access-date=2023-02-05 |website=Wikimedia Meta-Wiki |publisher=Wikimedia Foundation |language=en}} Daniel Alston, who edited Wikipedia as Fonzy,{{Cite web |date=2003-08-01 |title=User:Fonzy - Revision as of 08:16, August 1, 2003 |url=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Fonzy&diff=prev&oldid=1315899 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220805061807/https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Fonzy&diff=prev&oldid=1315899 |archive-date=2022-08-05 |access-date=2023-02-05 |website=Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia |publisher=Wikimedia Foundation}} claimed to have been the one who posted it.{{Cite web |date=2005-11-09 |title=Wikinews: Difference between revisions - Revision as of 18:39, November 9, 2005 |url=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikinews&diff=prev&oldid=27867383 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220915061155/https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikinews&diff=prev&oldid=27867383 |archive-date=2022-09-15 |access-date=2023-02-05 |website=Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia |publisher=Wikimedia Foundation |quote=Yes, I did make that anonymous post, I am not glory seeking, just getting the facts straight. Wikews was a terrible name I admit :p}} The proposal was then further developed by German freelance journalist, software developer, and author Erik Möller. Early opposition from long-time Wikipedia contributors, many of them pointing out the existence of Wikipedia's own news summaries, gave way to detailed discussions and proposals about how it could be implemented as a new project of the Wikimedia Foundation.{{Cite web |title=Wikinews/Vote |url=https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Vote |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230127203426/https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Vote |archive-date=2023-01-27 |access-date=2023-02-05 |website=Wikimedia Meta-Wiki |publisher=Wikimedia Foundation |language=en}}

The domain name wikinews.org was registered on April 2, 2004.{{Cite web |title=wikinews.org whois lookup |url=https://who.is/whois/wikinews.org |access-date=2023-02-05 |website=who.is}} In November 2004, a demonstration wiki was established to show how such a collaborative news site might work. A month later, in December 2004, the site was moved out of the "demo" stage and into the beta stage under public domain copyleft. A German language edition was launched at the same time. Soon, editions in Italian, Dutch, French, Spanish, Swedish, Bulgarian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Japanese, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, Thai, Norwegian, Chinese, Turkish, Korean, Hungarian, Greek, Esperanto, Czech, Albanian, and Tamil (in that chronological order) were set up.

In September 2005, the project moved to the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license.{{Cite news |date=September 25, 2005 |title=Wikinews switches to Creative Commons license |newspaper=Wikinews |publisher=Wikimedia Foundation |url=https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews_switches_to_Creative_Commons_license |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130512065124/http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews_switches_to_Creative_Commons_license |archive-date=May 12, 2013}} On September 7, 2007, the English Wikinews published its 10,000th article.{{Cite news |title=English Wikinews publishes 10000th article |url=https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/English_Wikinews_publishes_10000th_article |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220805061807/https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/English_Wikinews_publishes_10000th_article |archive-date=2022-08-05 |access-date=2023-02-05 |newspaper=Wikinews |date=September 7, 2007 |publisher=Wikimedia Foundation}}

In 2025, the Wikimedia Foundation organized the Wikimedia Hackathon in Istanbul, Turkey, from May 2 to 4, bringing together the global technical community to collaborate on existing projects.{{Cite web |last=Ozurumba |first=Uzoma |date=2025-04-28 |title=Tech News 2025, week 18 |url=https://diff.wikimedia.org/2025/04/28/tech-news-2025-week-18/ |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=Diff |language=en-US}} Additionally, the Foundation announced a new AI strategy aimed at enhancing editor support through AI-assisted workflows, improving information discoverability, and facilitating the onboarding of new volunteers with guided mentorship.{{Cite web |last=Zia |first=Chris Albon, Leila |date=2025-04-30 |title=Our new AI strategy puts Wikipedia's humans first |url=https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2025/04/30/our-new-ai-strategy-puts-wikipedias-humans-first/ |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=Wikimedia Foundation |language=en-US}}

File:David Shankbone and Shimon Peres.jpg with Israeli president Shimon Peres in 2007]]

Wikinews reporters have conducted interviews with several notable people, including an interview in December 2007 with Israeli President Shimon Peres by Wikinews reporter David Shankbone. Shankbone had been invited to conduct the interview by the America-Israel Friendship League and the Israeli foreign ministry.{{cite news |author=Jones |first=K.C. |date=January 14, 2008 |title=Wikinews Gets Big Interview: Israeli President Shimon Peres |newspaper=Information Week |url=http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205604529 |url-status=live |access-date=2023-02-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211022011913/https://www.informationweek.com/it-life/wikinews-gets-big-interview-israeli-president-shimon-peres |archive-date=2021-10-22}}{{cite web |last=Rose |first=Adam |date=January–February 2009 |title=The Wikinews Ace: Why Shimon Peres sat down with David Shankbone |url=https://www.cjr.org/on_the_job/the_wikinews_ace.php |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120509193458/https://www.cjr.org/on_the_job/the_wikinews_ace.php |archive-date=2012-05-09 |access-date=2023-02-05 |website=Columbia Journalism Review}}

Other notable interviews have included writers, actors, and politicians, such as Augusten Burroughs,{{cite web |last=Asper |first=Colleen |date=April 2008 |title=David Shankbone with Colleen Asper |url=http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/04/books/david-shankbone-with-colleen-asper |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080423072155/http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/04/books/david-shankbone-with-colleen-asper |archive-date=April 23, 2008 |access-date=2023-02-05 |website=The Brooklyn Rail}} several 2008 U.S. Republican Party presidential primaries candidates like Sam Brownback and Duncan Hunter, and others like British politician Tony Benn,{{Cite news |date=2007-08-12 |title=Wikinews interviews: Tony Benn on U.K. politics |newspaper=Wikinews |url=https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews_interviews:_Tony_Benn_on_U.K._politics |access-date=2023-02-05}} writer Eric Bogosian,{{Cite news |date=2008-04-17 |title=Eric Bogosian on writing and the creative urge |newspaper=Wikinews |url=https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Eric_Bogosian_on_writing_and_the_creative_urge |access-date=2023-02-05}} New Zealand politician Nick Smith,{{Cite news |date=2007-01-08 |title=Nick Smith responds to claims he is New Zealand's worst behaved politician |newspaper=Wikinews |url=https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Nick_Smith_responds_to_claims_he_is_New_Zealand%27s_worst_behaved_politician |access-date=2023-02-05}} former New Zealand prime minister John Key,{{Cite news |date=2007-05-23 |title=Exclusive video interview with New Zealand Opposition leader, John Key |newspaper=Wikinews |url=https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Exclusive_video_interview_with_New_Zealand_Opposition_leader,_John_Key |access-date=2023-02-05}} World Wide Web co-inventor Robert Cailliau,{{Cite news |date=2007-08-16 |title=Wikinews interviews World Wide Web co-inventor Robert Cailliau |newspaper=Wikinews |url=https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews_interviews_World_Wide_Web_co-inventor_Robert_Cailliau |access-date=2023-02-05}} drag queen RuPaul,{{Cite news |date=2007-10-06 |title=RuPaul speaks about society and the state of drag as performance art |newspaper=Wikinews |url=https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/RuPaul_speaks_about_society_and_the_state_of_drag_as_performance_art |access-date=2023-02-05}} and former Wikimedia Foundation executive Sue Gardner.{{Cite news |date=2007-10-24 |title=Interview with Sue Gardner of the Wikimedia Foundation |newspaper=Wikinews |url=https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Interview_with_Sue_Gardner_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation |access-date=2023-02-05}}

Wikinews has been criticized for its alleged inability to remain neutral in perspective and provide verifiable, reliable sources. In 2005, Robert McHenry, former editor-in-chief of the Encyclopædia Britannica, criticized the credibility of the project:

{{blockquote|Above all, the central question about the Wikinews effort is its credibility. Making a newspaper is hard...Someone who wants to do it but doesn't really know how hasn't solved the problem by gathering a lot of other people who don't know, either.}}

McHenry was skeptical about Wikinews' ability to provide a neutral point of view and its claim to be evenhanded, saying that "[t]he naïveté is stunning."

In a 2007 interview given to Wikinews, Sue Gardner, at that time a special adviser to the board of the Wikimedia Foundation and former head of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Internet division, CBC.ca, dismissed McHenry's comment, stating:

{{blockquote|Journalism is not a profession ... at its heart, it's just a craft. And that means that it can be practiced by anyone who is sensible and intelligent and thoughtful and curious ... I go back to the morning of Virginia Tech – the morning I decided I wanted to work [at the Wikimedia Foundation]. The conversation on the talk page that day was extremely thoughtful. I remember thinking to myself that if my own newsroom had been having a conversation that intelligent (I was offsite that day) I would have been delighted. So yes, [in my opinion] you absolutely have proved Robert McHenry wrong. And you will continue to."Interview with Sue Gardner of the Wikimedia Foundation", Wikinews; October 24, 2007.}}

Wikinews has also had issues with maintaining a separate identity from Wikipedia, which also covers major news events in real-time. Columnist Jonathan Dee of The New York Times said in 2007 that "So indistinct has the line between past and present become that Wikipedia has inadvertently all but strangled one of its sister projects, the three-year-old Wikinews... [Wikinews] has sunk into a kind of torpor; lately it generates just 8 to 10 articles a day... On bigger stories there's just no point in competing with the ruthless purview of the encyclopedia."{{cite news |first=Jonathan |last=Dee |title=All the News That's Fit to Print Out |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/magazine/01WIKIPEDIA-t.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=July 1, 2007 |access-date=December 31, 2007 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110322092520/http://www.nytimes.com//2007//07//01//magazine//01WIKIPEDIA-t.html |archive-date=March 22, 2011 }} Andrew Lih and Zachary M. Seward commented on the continuing issue in a 2010 piece in the Nieman Journalism Lab called "Why Wikipedia beats Wikinews as a collaborative journalism project." Lih wrote "it's not clear that the wiki process really gears itself towards deadlines and group narrative writing" and that "if you're trying to write something approaching a feature piece, it's much harder to get more than two or three people to stay consistent with the style."{{cite web |url=http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/02/why-wikipedia-beats-wikinews-as-a-collaborative-journalism-project/ |title=Why Wikipedia beats Wikinews as a collaborative journalism project |last=Seward |first=Zachary M. |date=February 8, 2010 |work=Nieman Journalism Lab |publisher=Nieman Foundation for Journalism |access-date=January 22, 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150107121240/http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/02/why-wikipedia-beats-wikinews-as-a-collaborative-journalism-project/ |archive-date=January 7, 2015 }} Lih considers Wikipedia's stricter "formula" for article composition an advantage in a large wiki with many editors. Brian Keegan wrote in 2019 that the Wikinews model of requiring approval before publication ultimately limited its ability to grow, especially compared to the more open nature of Wikipedia.{{Cite book |last=Keegan |first=Brian |url=https://assets.pubpub.org/g3zssedi/af715247-2f6a-4a0e-8d62-fc25172fa4cf.pdf |title=Wikipedia @ 20 : stories of an incomplete revolution |publisher=MIT Press |others=Joseph M., Jr. Reagle, Jackie L. Koerner |year=2019 |isbn=978-0-262-36059-3 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |chapter=An Encyclopedia with Breaking News |oclc=1187209148}}

Thomas Roessing wrote in The International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies in 2019 about journalism on Wikipedia and Wikinews: "Many people turn to Wikipedia for more information after they received news from the mass media ... There is a substantial danger of havoc resulting from hasty handling of information about an unfolding situation."{{Cite book |last=Roessing |first=Thomas |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781118841570 |title=The International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies |date=2019-05-14 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-118-84167-9 |editor-last=Vos |editor-first=Tim P. |edition=1 |language=en |doi=10.1002/9781118841570.iejs0183 |s2cid=186898987 |editor-last2=Hanusch |editor-first2=Folker |editor-last3=Dimitrakopoulou |editor-first3=Dimitra |editor-last4=Geertsema-Sligh |editor-first4=Margaretha |editor-last5=Sehl |editor-first5=Annika}} Roessing presents the issue of a "citation cycle", where professional journalists turn to Wikipedia for research, but the Wikipedia community goes to mass media sources for breaking news articles. Roessing writes about the problem of differentiating Wikipedia and Wikinews: "The quality and the speed in which Wikipedia responds to news is one of the challenges to Wikinews." Additionally, Roessing refers to an analogy made by author Matthew Yeomans: "Usually, Wikinews retells stories that were first published by Internet outlets of the traditional mass media (which also serve as sources for Wikinews' articles). This tends to result in "dull regurgitation of facts" as Yeomans (2005) put it."{{Cite web |last=Yeomans |first=Matthew |date=2005-04-28 |title=The Birth of Wikinews |url=http://citizenskane.blogspot.com/ |access-date=2023-02-05 |website=Citizens Kane |publisher=Blogspot |language=en}}

As of {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}, there are Wikinews sites for {{NUMBEROF|languages|wikinews}} languages of which {{NUMBEROF|active|wikinews}} are active and {{NUMBEROF|closed|wikinews}} are closed. The active sites have {{NUMBEROF|articles|totalactive.wikinews|N}} articles and the closed sites have {{NUMBEROF|articles|totalclosed.wikinews|N}} articles. There are {{NUMBEROF|users|totalactive.wikinews|N}} registered users of which {{NUMBEROF|activeusers|totalactive.wikinews|N}} are recently active.

The top ten Wikinews language projects by mainspace article count:Wikimedia's MediaWiki API:Siteinfo. Retrieved {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}} from Data:Wikipedia statistics/data.tab

• WikiTribune
• Wikitorial

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{{Commons category}}

{{Meta}}

{{Wikibooks}}

{{Wikiversity}}

• {{Official website}}
• Wikipedia:List of Wikinews sites
• Wikinews Statistics

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Category:American news websites

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Category:Internet properties established in 2004

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