[IxDA Discuss] Online Newspapers as Wikis

[Chris Marmo]

Hi guys,

Long time lurker but first time poster. I'm usually a bit too shy to  
post but I'd really love to hear people's opinions on a project I'm  
working on at the moment.

The main concept of the project is to foster involvement of the  
general public in the daily news cycle, and ultimately to improve the  
print edition of newspapers through a combination of reader  
participation and traditional journalism. To this end we're adapting  
Mediawiki (the stuff that runs wikipedia) for use on a fairly large  
European newspaper website.

We are working on things like:

User feedback before printing - ability for the public to discuss,  
criticize, or praise the article before it appears in the next days  
paper. A good example of this might be "Letters to the Editor" which  
are actually commenting on articles in the same edition.

User contributions  - which appear on the website first, and if good  
enough make it through to the print edition. Readers can vote on  
articles (nothing new) but then the final control comes down to the  
editors (whose role would be more of an information and quality filter).

Making the publishing process transparent - so journalists actually  
write and mould their articles on the wiki for all to see, and  
readers and fellow journalists can comment as the article progresses.

Simplifying the article creation and editing process - editors can  
put out requests for whole articles or "informants" on a particular  
topic,  and anyone could respond.

For the purpose of discussion we have a mock-up redesign of the  
Washington Post as a Wiki, and we have a PDF detailing our ideas  
further:

Washington Post mockup: http://www.informationarchitects.jp/ 
washington-post-redesign-as-a-wiki
PDF Article: http://www.informationarchitects.jp/ 
iA_future_of_newspapers_v05.pdf
A shorter post: http://www.informationarchitects.jp/10-newspaper- 
myths-deconstructed

We've done a lot of work on this, and we feel it's time to throw the  
ideas out there for discussion. We'd really like to hear what  
everyone thinks.

Do you have any concerns with the concept of using a wiki for what is  
supposed to be a "reliable source" of information?

If you've used wikipedia before, what do you think would be the major  
hurdles for journalists, readers and editors being able to use it  
effectively for the purposes above?

Any responses, comments or suggestions will be greatly appreciate.  
We'd like as much feedback as possible!

Best,
Chris