A talk I gave at Wikimania 2014 about the need to recognise Wikipedia's power as a newsmaker and why we need to be more reflective about our biases.

1. Wikipedia and
breaking news
The promise of a global news platform
and the threat of the filter bubble
!
Heather Ford | @hfordsa

2. All of us
not just some of us.

3. (N)ews was being
produced by regular
people who had
something to say and
show, and not solely
by the "official" news
organizations that had
traditionally decided
how the first draft of
history would look.
2004

4. (Peer production projects
like Wikipedia) enables
many more individuals to
communicate their
observations and their
viewpoints to many others,
and to do so in a way that
cannot be controlled by
media owners and is not as
easily corruptible by money
as were the mass media.
2006

6. <What is Wikipedia news?>

7. 18 billion page views
500 million unique visitors per month
(Comscore)

8. 1.8 million views

9. 1. Wikipedia does journalism
2. Wikipedia avoids being biased

11. Journalists: sources = people
Wikipedians: sources = documents
Sources

12. Wikipedia does Wikipedia does not
publish original thought: all material in
Wikipedia must be attributable to a
reliable, published source. Articles may
not contain any new analysis or synthesis
of published material that serves to reach
or imply a conclusion not clearly stated
by the sources themselves.
Wikipedia: No Original Research

13. The topic of an article should
be notable, or "worthy of notice";
that is, "significant, interesting, or
unusual enough to deserve
attention or to be recorded”.
!
Wikipedia: Notability

14. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Revolution_of_2011

15. Egypt braces for nationwide protests!
By Jailan Zayan (AFP) – Jan 25, 2011
CAIRO — Egypt braced for a day of nationwide anti-
government protests on Tuesday, with organisers
counting on the Tunisian uprising to inspire crowds to
mobilise for political and economic reforms.

16. 2011 Egyptian protests!
The 2011 Egyptian protests are a continuing series of
street demonstrations taking place throughout Egypt
from January 2010 onwards with organisers counting
on the Tunisian uprising to inspire the crowds to
mobilize.

17. ‘(I knew) the thing was going to
be big… before the revolution
became a revolution’.
TheEgyptianLiberal

18. hiraan.com

19. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Kenyan_invasion_of_Somalia_(2011)

20. </What is Wikipedia news?>

21. <Local spheres>

22. http://www.superbwallpapers.com/

23. Gilad Lotan: Twitter responses to the UNRWA school bombing
https://medium.com/i-data/israel-gaza-war-data-a54969aeb23e

24. </Local spheres>

25. <Wikipedia as an
authoritative source>

26. • Pic: encyclopedias

28. </Wikipedia as an
authoritative source>

29. <Change>

30. Pic by Martin Heigan CC BY NC SA http://www.flickr.com/photos/martin_heigan/1457845785/in/photostream/
The sum of all human
knowledge…

31. </Change>

32. hfordsa@gmail.com
@hfordsa