Another Odd Choice From WikiNews

Friday was another terrible and violent day on planet earth. More than 80 people died in a blast at an Egyptian holiday resort, London police shot and killed a man suspected of being connected to the Underground bombings and on the streets of Beirut a bomb went off near a restaurant.

All of those stories were published by the main stream media news sites of the world - and by WikiNews. However on a day like this WikiNews also found the following story worthy of front page mentioning: Many horses in Sweden lack passport.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if WikiNews wants to be taken seriously as a credible news source it has to find a way to prioritize the news. Odd stories like this one may be important (who am I to argue about the validity of a story about horse passports) - but there's no way it should make it to the top of the front page of any international news site.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for a site like WikiNews. As a matter of fact I want it to succeed. I simply don't believe in the "everybody-write-everybody-decide" system for a news site. In my opinion WikiNews could be a much better site with a few editors in charge.

Technorati: Media |Journalism

Comments

[CGorman]

I agree with you Henrik! There were thousends of more "important stories" the other day, bot least the horrible bombings. However because of our size we currently publish all stories on the page to give the impression of uptodateness.... we are currently working on a catagorization system to prioritise stories... but untill we reach a volume of over 35-40 stories a day, we will list everything on the main page. Remember our readers choose our stories not an editor, so there will always be "odd" stories... we even have a catagory for them - Wackynews.

You really are interested in us! Go on, give us a try, write an article or edit one! Thats my second invitation to you!

[Henrik]

Good to hear that you are aware of the problem and working to solve it. I think you're right, people don't choose stories after who edited it but they do tend to choose a well edited and prioritized web site over a non edited and non prioritized site.

Hopefully you solve the problem.

Thanks for your comments and for keeping the debate alive.