Wikipedia co-founder wants to use news platform to prevent the spread of fake news

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales starts the online news service WikiTribune to fight the spread of fake news. On Tuesday, he started a crowdfunding campaign for this. On WikiTribune, the community will hire journalists to write stories.

WikiTribune is a news service where paid journalists collaborate with people from the community. They work side by side on news stories that are adapted and supplemented by both groups as they write. The facts are also checked by the community. The news stories are free to read; the business model is based on monthly subscriptions from community members, Wired writes.

Wales wants to bring fact-based news, using Wikipedia’s ‘fact-checking mentality’. The sources used will be completely transparent. The WikiTribune website will focus on stories such as regional news and topics of interest worldwide. Investigative journalism will also play a role on WikiTribune.

The basis of WikiTribune is formed by the community and not by the professional journalists. The community determines how many journalists can be hired and what they write stories about based on the subscription income and their interests. It is unclear how the journalists can maintain their independence in this construction. Wales hopes there is no need to monetize advertising; WikiTribune will not have any ads or use a paywall.

The proceeds of the crowdfunding campaign, which sells monthly ‘support packages’, will determine the size of the team of journalists who will write for WikiTribune. The campaign will run for one month. The WikiTribune website states that there are already 483 ‘supporters’. WikiTribune’s goal is to raise enough money through the crowdfunding campaign to hire ten journalists. If that goal is not met, the lenders will get their money back.