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Wikinews:10,000 articles and counting

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From Wikinews, the free news source you can write!
 This page is no longer current and/or valid. It is kept for historical record or interest. Do not assume content on this page is still technically correct.
If the information contained on this page becomes timely again, please remove this tag.

This page is for collecting information relevant to the press release that Sandra Ordonez, Wikimedia Foundation Communications Manager, will be sending out. This page should include facts, and a release shouldn't be drafted here.

  • In January 2003 Wikinews was first proposed by an anonymous IP address as "Wikews" [1]
  • In January 2004 discussion was stale for a few months Erik Möller, who later became founder of the website, changed the name idea to Wikinews and started discussions about the idea
  • In April 2004 Möller registered the domain name wikinews.org
  • In May 2004 the Wikinews concept was revealed in his electorial platform for the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation [2] (See paragrath 5)
  • In June 2004 at the Wizards of OS conference Möller and Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales discussed the creation of Wikinews
  • In October 2004 Möller implemented policy pages, organised the website, and got things up and running
    • In November 2004 the English Wikinews was initiated
    • Every article had to be reviewed by another editor before it was published
    • In November Wikinews was edited by an American freelance journalist named David Speakman [3], who left Wikinews He is now a law student
    • Confounding Robert McHenry ever since his derogatory description of the project as, "Above all, the central question about the Wikinews effort is its credibility. Making a newspaper is hard...Someone who wants to do it but doesn't really know how hasn't solved the problem by gathering a lot of other people who don't know, either."
  • In November 2005, two years after the edit which started a website (Wikinews) that would later change the definition of citizen journalism, was claimed by Wikipedia user Fonzy
  • In July 2007, Wikinews did an investigation concerning Chris Benoit and his family. The investigation was later published on CNN, Fox News, and several local sources.


  • some statistics :

http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikinews/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm http://s23.org/wikistats/wikinews_html.php

Notable articles

  • Many of the hot topics that have come up on Wikinews have turned the site into a hub for the latest information on a subject. The death of Chris Benoit and family just looked like another ordinary day story until someone from over on Wikipedia pointed out that there were mysterious edits on Wikipedia. With mainstream journalists not knowing the inner workings of a Wiki, Wikinews was the place to get the details.
  • Early December 2005 saw a disaster in the UK, in parallel with updates to Wikipedia's article on the Buncefield accident the Wikinews article was updated hundreds of times with a horde of UK people keeping the information up to the minute.
  • On July 7, 2005, Wikinews recieved exclusive coverage of the London Bombings and was one of the only websites with pictures of the bomb site entirely from citizens, not knowing that one day their camera or camera phone would just come in handy. Wikinews users from the UK watched TV, listened to the radio, and did as much as they could to make this the best article on Wikinews. On March 19, 2006, it was nominated for featured article and passed. On Google the second search result, after Wikinews' main page, is the London Bombings story. This article, by far, proves itself as the most read and best written article ever created on Wikinews. [4]
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