Wired News Dabbles in Collaborative Journalism
Wired News wants your help.
Reporter Ryan Singel is writing a story on the wiki phenomenon, and as part of the reporting, he’s decided to post his piece online, allowing anyone to make changes to the headline, deck, and body, along with adding links and whatever other information the masses deem necessary.
It’s an interesting experiment, and one that has been tried to varying degrees of success. The Los Angeles Times tried out a “wikitorial,” a collaboratively written editorial, and had to pull down the site soon after it went live because it was being flooded with “inappropriate material.”
And last year, Technology Review’s own Wade Roush used his blog to write a magazine story, “Social Computing” – an experiment that’s much easier to handle. After all, you can always turn off the comments on a blog – not so much on a wiki.
How will Wired News’ experiment in participatory journalism end? It’s hard to tell – but the company certainly has come a long way in its thinking. In 2002, when I worked there, an editor told me that blogs were nothing more than glorified home pages. Clearly, times have changed.
Keep Reading
Most Popular

The dark secret behind those cute AI-generated animal images
Google Brain has revealed its own image-making AI, called Imagen. But don't expect to see anything that isn't wholesome.

Inside Charm Industrial’s big bet on corn stalks for carbon removal
The startup used plant matter and bio-oil to sequester thousands of tons of carbon. The question now is how reliable, scalable, and economical this approach will prove.

The hype around DeepMind’s new AI model misses what’s actually cool about it
Some worry that the chatter about these tools is doing the whole field a disservice.

How Charm Industrial hopes to use crops to cut steel emissions
The startup believes its bio-oil, once converted into syngas, could help clean up the dirtiest industrial sector.
Stay connected

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.