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In an increasingly web-based culture of knowledge, it’s perhaps no surprise that websites like Wikipedia.org are now being consulted by credible news sources. Since it’s launch in 2001, Wikipedia has gained notoriety from its entirely user-contributed and edited online encyclopedia.

The Wall Street Journal, for example, has referenced Wikipedia on a piece it featured discussing “turducken” (a bizarre concoction in which a chicken is stuffed into a duck that is stuffed into a turkey). While some critics have judged this sort of Wikipedia usage as un-journalistic, others note, where else would you get information on a turducken? Certainly not from your standard encyclopedia.

However, as a result of its user-generated articles, many news and scholarly organizations immediately write the site off as “false” and “unverifiable.” For example, Mike Leary, managing editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, recently sent an e-mail to staffers forbidding the use of Wikipedia to “verify facts or augment a story.”

Even the French Agence France Presse banned its reporters from using Facebook and Wikipedia as sources, reported a previous Weblog posting.

Wikipedia’s leadership appears more than aware of the site’s strengths and potential shortcomings. The site features numerous disclaimers, one of which reminds users that "anyone with an Internet connection" can alter the content and cautions, "please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by people with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information."

Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, suggested that despite these warnings, more journalists are daring to test out the site.

"I think that people are sort of slowly learning how to use Wikipedia, and learning its strengths and its weaknesses," he said. "Of course, any reasonable person has to be up front that there are weaknesses... On the other hand, there are lots of sources that have weaknesses."

Wales thinks the encyclopedia's best journalistic use is for background research rather than as a source to be quoted, the American Journalism Review reported.

The Los Angeles Times has adopted a relatively open stance on the usage of Wikipedia sources. Melissa McCoy, the Times’ deputy managing editor in charge of copy desks, explained that the paper occasionally allows Wikipedia references.

"We're certainly not going to use Wikipedia as a stand-alone news source, but we're not going to exclude it if it takes us somewhere," she said. "If a reporters spots something in there and it makes them do an extra phone call, it's silly not to use it,” McCoy suggested.

With opinions on Wikipedia usage in newsrooms remaining mixed—with most opting to steer clear of the site—papers like The Wall Street Journal and the
are demonstrating that some journalists are discovering the value of the site as a roadmap for further research.


Source: ajr.org through cyberjournalist.net

Rue89.com was founded in May by four former journalists and bloggers from the French leftist daily Libération. Within months, the online-only news site unearthed a few scoops and became a recognized independent source in the French media landscape, ranking first among French news sites for time spent, ahead of newspapers, according to Nielsen NetRatings. One of its founders and director, Pierre Haski, tells the Editors Weblog how Rue89 found a working compromise to pro-am journalism.

Last week, a map of Britain took up The Independent’s entire page one, showing the location of the country’s population by race.  Yep, that’s right.  They put an infographic front and centre with no other stories around it.  Although an atypical move for newspapers in general, The Independent is following a long-term trend towards design modernization that shows no signs of slowing. 

Yesterday's Google YouTube merger must be seen as an emerging business model. Google has the advertising pool and infrastructure to monetize Web pages and YouTube delivers the kind of content many advertisers want: young, smart, creative people with pocket money and spare time to spend . . .

After being commanded by a Belgian court to remove all French and German-language newspaper content from its Belgian Google News site, Google is counteracting with an appeal. The world's most popular search engine company has agreed to take down all of the cited content instead of paying the daily €1 million fine. But is there enough evidence to uphold the court's original decision?

With 25 million in circulation worldwide, free dailies are booming — just not in India. Indian newspapers are the cheapest in the world, according to Indian advertising, media and marketing site agencyfaqs!, meaning the country’s newspaper industry is following a business model very different from the one taking hold in the West.

Peter Bale, editor of Times Online, the online portal belonging to the UK's number two quality daily, criticised the idea of over-personalising newspapers when speaking at the 'Tomorrow's Web' conference on May 3rd. His main criticism of personalising newspapers is that it makes for a "dull" newspaper. For Bale one of the main objectives of the newspaper is to "give people journeys that surprise them," in his view this is hampered by personalisation.