🌐 WikiNewsroom 🗞️
This story is about WikiNewsroom
I write stories from the front and back lines of the newsroom. This story is about WikiNewsroom.
What is WikiNewsroom?
WikiNewsroom is a WikiProject that I pitched to a room full of Wikipedians at the last WikiWednesday meeting. My fellow Wikipedians seemed delighted at the prospect of growing the Wikipedian in residence program into newsrooms.
The executive director of WikiNYC asked me whether the program would focus on educating Wikipedians on journalism methods or educating journalists on Wikimedia methods.
I told her both.
While on the board of Women Do News, I realized that trying to inject Wiki practices into journalism was more of an uphill battle than implementing journo practices into Wikipedia.
At my first Wikipedia event, I met a Wikimedian who explained the relationship between news and Wikipedia perfectly: “We love journalists. You write the original sources code to Wikipedia.”
Why now?
Newsrooms are struggling with audience reach and trust. Wikipedia is always looking for more editors. WikiNewsrooms formalize the symbiotic relationship between reliable sources and Wikipedia.
Wikipedians in Residence accept placements at knowledge institutions such as art galleries, libraries, museums, archives and universities.
Wikipedians are already in historical archives and museums. Now is the time to place a Wikipedian in the rooms where they are writing the first draft of history. Newsrooms spend time creating amazing journalism. Investigative works full of fascinating facts are read by three people and trend for a fleeting day.
Newsrooms die every day. Media journalists write their obituaries. Newsroom archival producers scramble to document these deaths and preserve their histories. Wikipedians in residence (WiR) placed in newsrooms will make those works permanent. Resurrecting the journalism that newsrooms invest in and amplifying the human stories that changed the world.
How?
This program starts with simplicity.
One newsroom (open to new projects to strengthen reach and trust)
One Wikimedian (me?)
This concept is not foreign to Wikimedians. But journalists need more guidance on Wikipedia's reach and authority.
When?
I pitched this idea to an eager group of Wikimedians who gave me lots of great ideas that I implemented into my Wikinewsroom pitch.
On Friday, I’m going to pitch this new WikiProject to another room of my people: the journalists at Media Party 2026.
Join Us!
Help me with some cat treat money, and maybe Freddy Furiosa will give me the remote back.
