Wikipedia founder aims to destroy fake news with online newspaper

According to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, "the news is broken and we can fix it.”

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Wales aims to do just that by launching Wikitribune, an ad-free online news publication financed not by advertising, but by a crowdfunding campaign.

In a video announcement for the new site, Wales said the digital age and social media have negatively affected traditional journalism, resulting in consumers’ desire for free content and news organizations’ dependence on advertising and “clicks” to meet financial goals, ultimately giving rise to fake, click-bait news.

Wikitribune, he said, is his solution. The online newspaper, according to Wales, is “by the people and for the people,” and will be written, curated and fact-checked based on standards-based, evidence-backed journalism, by professional journalists and community members.

Authors for the no-paywall site will cover a wide range of topics, from U.S. politics to science and technology.

Initially, Wikitribune is looking to hire 10 professional journalists to work with community members to fact-check content, Wales told The Verge. While anyone can suggest edits, edits will need to be approved by an official member or volunteer.

Readers will also be able to purchase monthly subscriptions, which will allow them to suggest topics they want journalists to cover, for approximately $15.

"I wonder whether it will be able to scale up to make a significant impact on the information sphere -- especially on social networks such as Facebook where the main problems of fake news and misinformation occur," London School of Economics professor Charlie Beckett told CNN.

Beckett is one of many experts who are skeptical about Wikitribune.

Joshua Benton, director of Harvard University's Nieman Journalism Lab, told the BBC that 10 or 20 people aren’t going to “fix the news.”

“There's certainly a model for nonprofit news that can be successful ... but I have a hard time seeing this scale up into becoming a massive news organization,” Benton said.

Cox Media Group