The Problem With #WikiTribune
'...The larger problem with WikiTribune is this: Someone who is paid for doing journalistic work cannot be considered “equals” with someone who is unpaid. And promoting the idea that core journalistic work should be done for free, by volunteers, is harmful to professional journalism...'
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/wikipedia-the-newspaper/524211
@jd Hmmm. I didn't see journalists complaining when Wikipedia took away paid work for writers of encyclopedias, handbooks, and other secondary-source collections. But now that their ox is being gored, they notice?
@sunita I think pro Journos have complained a lot over the years - the cost of so much 'for free' has killed newspapers and other media all over the world.
@jd They've complained about for-free news, no question, but Wikipedia is a bit different, no? And the Atlantic writer seems to be making a WikiTribune-specific argument about the value of journalists. I don't entirely disagree, but it's not that different from the original Wikipedia issues.
@sunita I have posted a number of times about #WikiTribune – I am not convinced it will work or solve the problem it says it wants to solve.
@sunita ok I see your point better now. Agreed. I find it amazing that we now have a generation of journalists that grew up on the net and they still do not get it.
@jd It's part of what is so insidious about how sites get content now. Ppl are told it's fine to write for free or almost nothing, have no job security, etc. Just vague promises of future benefits. And yet they do it. Meanwhile, the paid journos at the top hang out with the elites they cover. We're all going down the drain together, I guess. 😱
@jd I have no idea if it will work; Wikipedia was terrible as a source for many years before scholars & other knowledgeable people started to work on it. My criticism is the column's implication that the harm to journalists is worse that the other harms created by volunteer contributions to news/info sites.